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What Rex Reed Taught Me About Truth, Kindness and Writing

The legendary film critic who mentored writers, championed outsiders and never wavered in his advice: "Tell the truth, and your work will find an audience."

I first heard the name Rex Reed when I was about eight years old, and he arrived in Baton Rouge to write about the making of a film. Rex was considered a hometown success story, having graduated from Louisiana State University and having had crosses burned on his lawn after he wrote a scathing editorial for the college newspaper called “The Price of Prejudice.” The film being made was tentatively titled Blood Kin and was based on the Tennessee Williams play The Seven Descents of Myrtle. The director was Sidney Lumet, and the film starred the bright, buoyant Lynn Redgrave, who held court in the lobby of the Bellemont Motor Hotel, where all the film crews stayed when in town, which, according to Rex, looked as if Dorothy Lamour had exploded. (The hotel staff would show off bullet marks in the pool that appeared after locals were outraged that Robert Hooks—a Black actor—had dipped into it during the making of Hurry Sundown, and they shot it up, claiming the actors would be next.) I first heard Rex Reed’s voice when he told a friend of mine, Barbara Chaney, “Otto........

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