Frank Rich

Frank Rich
Occupation	Writer (non-fiction essayist and columnist)
Language	English
Alma mater	Harvard University
Genre	Non-fiction
Spouse	Gail Winston (divorced) Alexandra Witchel
Children	two sons(including Simon Rich) with Winston
Website
http://www.frankrich.com frankrich.com

Frank Rich (born June 2, 1949) is an American essayist writer and columnist. Since 1980, he has written for The New York Times, at first as its theatre critic. More recently, his weekly column, which covers American politics and popular culture, ran on the front page of the paper's Sunday "Arts & Leisure" section from 2003 to 2005; it now appears in the paper's Sunday "Week in Review" section.

Early life and education

Rich grew up in Washington, D.C., where his father owned a shoe store, Rich's Shoes. He attended Woodrow Wilson Senior High School, becoming the editor of the school's student newspaper, The Beacon, and graduated in 1967.

He attended Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he studied American history and literature while living in Lowell House — one of the twelve undergraduate residential houses within Harvard College. While at Harvard, he became the editorial chairman of The Harvard Crimson, the university's daily student newspaper. He graduated in 1971.

Career

Before joining The New York Times in 1980, he was a film critic for Time magazine.

Theatre criticism

Rich first garnered attention from the theatre community with a lengthy essay he wrote for The Harvard Crimson about the theatre musical Follies (1971), by Stephen Sondheim, during its pre-Broadway tryout run in Boston, Masschusetts. In his study of the work, he was "the first person to predict the legendary status the show eventually would achieve", and the article "fascinated" Harold Prince, the musical's co-director, and "absolutely intrigued" Sondheim, who invited the undergraduate to lunch to discuss further his feelings about the production.

A collection of his theatre reviews were published in a book, Hot Seat (1998). One of the running themes in the book is Rich's attempt to disprove the popular perception of the power of the chief drama critic of The New York Times. In an addendum, he lists a dozen or more shows that achieved long runs despite his negative reviews, as well as many shows that received rave reviews from him but did not last more than a few weeks.

Media and political criticism

Since 2003, Rich has written regularly for The New York Times on the mass media and public relations, particularly on its coverage of U.S. national politics. His columns make regular references to a broad range of popular culture — including television, movies, theater, and literature — and draws connections to politics and current events. His column is also published in the International Herald Tribune, a subsidiary of The New York Times Company.

In the late 1990s, Rich met Alan Conway, a con artist pretending to be the film director Stanley Kubrick, and arranged to interview him, believing Conway to be Kubrick. Upon contacting the film studio Warner Brothers, however, Rich discovered that the man he had met was an impostor. The incident was later included in the dramatization of Conway's exploits in the comedy-drama film Colour Me Kubrick (2006), in which Rich is portrayed by William Hootkins.

As a political commentator, Rich is often criticized by Bill O'Reilly, host of The O'Reilly Factor, a television talk show on the Fox News Channel. Rich is openly critical of Fox News, accusing it in 2004 of having a politically conservative media bias. O'Reilly later cited Rich's 2007 award from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a media monitoring organization, as proof of his bias.

In a January 2006 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, a weekday television talk show, commenting on the James Frey memoir scandal, he expanded on his usage in his column of the term "truthiness" to summarize a variety of parallel ills in culture and politics.

His book The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina (2006) criticized the American media for its support of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration's policies following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Rich dismissed the historical-drama film The Passion of the Christ (2004), directed by Mel Gibson, as "nothing so much as a porn movie, replete with slo-mo climaxes and pounding music for the money shots", and praised Christopher Hitchens's description of it as "a homoerotic 'exercise in lurid sadomasochism' for those who 'like seeing handsome young men stripped and flayed alive over a long period of time.'"

A July 2009 column focused on what Rich believes is the bigoted nature of the U.S. president's detractors.. On the Tea Party movement, which emerged in 2009, Rich opined that they are similar in nature to the Ku Klux Klan, a U.S. right-wring organization and had, in response to the passage of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act created "...its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht", the two-night, November 1938 anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria.

Awards

In 2005, Rich received the George Polk Award given annually by Long Island University in Brookville, New York, to honor contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting.

In 2007, he received an award from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a media-monitoring organization, during its 18th Annual GLAAD Media Awards.

Personal life

Rich is married to Alexandra Witchel, who also writes — as Alex Witchel — for The New York Times. He has two sons from his previous marriage to Gail Winston. One of those sons, Simon Rich, is currently a writer for Saturday Night Live, a live, late-night television sketch comedy and variety show.

His memoir Ghost Light (2000) chronicles his childhood through his college years in 1950s Maryland with a focus on his lifelong adoration of the theatre and the impact it had on his life.

On March 6, 2010, Rich appeared on Saturday Night Live as a guest on the recurring skit What Up With That. Time humorously ran out before he could be interviewed.

He lives in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York.

Bibliography

• Rich, Frank; Aronson, Lisa (1987). The Theatre Art of Boris Aronson. Alfred A. Knopf (New York City, New York). ISBN 0394529138.
• Rich, Frank (1998). Hot Seat — Theater Criticism for The New York Times, 1980-1993. Random House (New York City, New York). ISBN 0-679-45300-8.
• Rich, Frank (2000). Ghost Light — A Memoir.. Random House (New York City, New York). ISBN 0-375-75824-0.
• Rich, Frank (2006). The Greatest Story Ever Sold — The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina. Penguin Press (New York City, New York). ISBN 1-59420-098-X.

External links

• frankrich.com, Rich's official website
• TheNew York Times biographical video interview
• Ghost Light
• Index of New York Times columns by Frank Rich
• Harvard Crimson pieces
• Rich participates in extended political discussion with Andrew Rosenthal, David Brooks and Maureen Dowd, The New York Times video, July 17, 2006
• Craig Lambert article, Harvard Magazine, July-August 2007
• San Diego City Beat interview, May 5, 2007