Monday, Nov. 18, 1957
Critic Meets Critics
Critic John Crosby, who has been dishing it out to TV for eleven years in the New York Herald Tribune and 95 other papers, started taking it last week. After serving as narrator in the debut of CBS's The Seven Lively Arts, Crosby "went into a state of shock" at the sort of things TV critics say about a new performer.
Carped the New York Journal-American's Jack O'Brian: "Crosby seemed to smile as if in constant pain. Closeups presented his face with a seemingly endless mouth and large lips which seemed to be pulled vertically apart as if with unseen strings." The Daily News's mild Ben Gross proposed that John "do something to control his twitching." The San Francisco Chronicle's Terrence O'Flaherty found him "nervous as an unprepared high-school valedictorian." And Variety spelled it out: "He forgot entire sentences and cues. He's far too deadpan. He has a tendency to speak stiffly, as if by rote."
There was one big consolation among a few friendlier notices. To cover the show for his own column, Crosby commandeered his friend, Playwright George (The Seven Year Itch) Axelrod, who agreed in advance to pull no punches. Axelrod came through manfully. He liked Crosby's "gently, wryly perceptive style."
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