Wissenswertes

Her first piece of film criticism for "The New Yorker" was a glowing review of Bonnie und Clyde (1967), written at a time when several critics were panning the film. Her review may have led to the film's eventual box office success and many Academy Award nominations the following year.

Kael gave an isolated positive review to Jessica Lange's much-maligned debut performance in King Kong (1976), writing that Lange's screen presence reminded her of Carole Lombard. She also singled out Morgan Freeman's early performance in Brubaker (1980) as the highlight of the movie. Both Lange and Freeman went on to become highly respected Oscar-winning actors.

The evil "General Kael" in Willow (1988) was named after Kael, who had been critical of producer George Lucas; she was not amused.

When her editor at the New Yorker, William Shawn, wanted her to rewrite her negative review of Badlands - Zerschossene Träume (1973) as director Terrence Malick was a family friend of his, Kael replied, "Tough shit, Bill".

Despite her at times harsh critical nature, she was known among friends and co-workers as a warm and friendly person.

A friend and champion of Sam Peckinpah, she was one of the first to confront the director about his destructive lifestyle, including his rampant alcoholism and misogyny.

It was believed for many years that she had been married and divorced three times, a fiction she encouraged. In fact, she was only married once. Her daughter Gina was born out of wedlock and was fathered by the bisexual poet and avant-garde film-maker James Broughton.

Before making her living as a film critic, she held several unrelated jobs in order to raise her child as a single mother. These include seamstress and advertising copywriter.

It is often erroneously reported that Kael was fired from McCall's magazine in 1966 for panning Meine Lieder, meine Träume (1965) in her film review column for the magazine. In truth, she was let go for disagreements with the editorial staff, namely panning several highly acclaimed or successful films including the aforementioned "The Sound of Music".

Member of 'Official Competition' jury at the 30th Cannes International Film Festival in 1977.

Wrote the film school recommendation for director Paul Schrader to UCLA, which later admitted him. Schrader credits Kael with being instrumental in helping his film career.

She claimed to see films only once when reviewing them.

Her first book, "I Lost It At The Movies", contains a lengthy put-down of Herbert Biberman's famous film, "Salt Of The Earth". However, she describes in the article various scenes, moments and lines of dialogue which are not in the final version of the film as shown, although they are in the published version of the screenplay. This led several people to allege that she had panned the film without actually seeing it.

Was not a fan of Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, or Stanley Kubrick.

Is considered by many to be the greatest film critic of the late twentieth century.