Stuart Byron

Stuart Byron (born May 9, 1941 in the Bronx, New York) was a noted film critic and activist for gay rights.[1]

He attended public schools in New York, then matriculated at Wesleyan University - studying history and joining EQV Fraternity before graduating in 1963[2]. For two years after graduation he was associate editor of the Independent Film Journal, then spent several years as a publicist for Pathé and Avco/Embassy, plus a year as assistant to the president for motion pictures at Natoma Productions. Later, in the early 1980s, Byron spent several years as a creative affairs executive for Ray Stark at Rastar Productions.

In the 60s, Byron worked for a year as a reviewer (and sometime reporter) for Variety, and in 1971 he became the film-review columnist for The Village Voice at a time when the American film art and the dialogue surrounding it were being completely revised[3]. Byron's resume, and his platform at the culturally-influential weekly made certain his voice was heard among the new wave of film-critics. Indeed, his substantial essays also frequently began to appear in On Film, Film Comment, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Harper's, Movie, Creem, and New York magazine, among others. Byron also became well known for his "World's Hardest Movie Quiz" features in The Village Voice (which briefly returned to the paper in his memory from 1999-2004), and later for his "Rules of the Game" columns. He also achieved national notoriety for his remarks about Pauline Kael's supposed homophobia[4][5].

He is the co-editor (with Elisabeth Weis) of the book "The National Society of Film Critics on Movie Comedy", published in 1976.

Byron was one of the first openly gay film critics in New York[6], coming-out publicly in one of his first reviews in the Village Voice (February 18, 1971). He was active in the Gay Activists Alliance as well as National Gay Task Force. Aside from a brief sojourn in Boston, he was a New York City resident until 1982, when he moved to Los Angeles to work for Stark. Although he returned to writing in 1984, he remained in California for the rest of his life; his work regularly appeared in LA Weekly, and the gay news magazine The Advocate. He died December 13, 1991 from complications resulting from AIDS.

His papers are held at the Wesleyan Film Archives at Wesleyan University.

See also

References
  1. https://www.wesleyan.edu/cinema/collections/byron.html
  2. http://www.eqv.name/biographies/Bios_im.htm#_Toc128728362
  3. http://bostonreview.net/jonathan-kirshner-pauline-kael-roger-ebert-film-criticism
  4. https://www.gayinla.com/index.php/events/today-in-gay-history/12105-today-in-gay-history-september-03-2001
  5. https://www.salon.com/2004/06/25/seligman/
  6. https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/15/archives/healthy.html
  • Wesleyan Film Archives: The Stuart Byron Collection
  • Village Voice website references
  • "The National Society of Film Critics on Movie Comedy" (hardcover)
  • "The National Society of Film Critics on Movie Comedy" (paperback)
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.