Pauline Kael

Born

June 19, 1919

Died

Sep 3, 2001

From

Petaluma, California, USA·Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA

Height

1.52 m (5'0")

Also:
Writer

Credits on file

Decades active

Awards

In short · Wrote for seven decades — 17 credits, 5 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award wins.

Remembered for

Ranked by community engagement + sustained interest across this person's credits in our database.

Recent & in release

1999
Award win
Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award — Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
1978
Award win
Crystal Award — Crystal Award
1974
Award win
National Book Award — National Book Award
1970
Award win
George Polk Award — George Polk Award

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Biography

Pauline Kael was born in Petaluma, CA, in 1919, and attended the University of California at Berkeley in the 1930s. She tried and failed to work as a playwright in her 20s, and began writing film reviews as a freelance writer for film journals in the 1950s. After success with national magazines in the 1960s and publishing her first book, "I Lost It At the Movies,", she became a film critic for The New Yorker in 1968, and wrote for that magazine until 1991. She published 13 books of her essays and criticism, and won the National Book Award in 1974, and wielded power and influence, even after retiring. She passed away on September 3, 2001.