Film critic Judith Crist dies at age 90

By Ann Oldenburg, USA TODAY

Posted August 7, 2012

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Judith Crist in 2008 at a restaurant on Long Island, N.Y. (Credit: By Steven Crist, AP)

Judith Crist, a longtime film critic and a reviewer for the Today show, died today at her home in Manhattan. She was 90. Her death was confirmed by her son, Steven, reports the New York Times.

Crist was the first woman to be made a full-time reviewer for a major American newspaper when she landed a job with The New York Herald Tribune. She was the Today show's first regular movie critic, appearing on NBC from 1963 to 1973. But she was probably best known to readers of TV Guide, where her reviews appeared for 22 years -- into the 1980s. And she wrote for Saturday Review, Gourmet and Ladies' Home Journal.

One of the comments that helped bring her notoriety: Of The Sound of Music, she said, "The movie is for the 5-to-7 set and their mommies who think the kids aren't up to the stinging sophistication and biting wit of Mary Poppins. "