Mel Gussow

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Melvyn H. Gussow
Born	December 19, 1933
Birth place	New York City
Died	April 29, 2005
in	New York City
Circumstances
Occupation	Theater critic, movie critic, author
Spouse	Ann B. Gussow
Children	Ethan M. Gussow
Religious belief(s)	Jewish
Notable credit(s)	The New York Times; Newsweek; The Army Heidelberg;

Melvyn H. Gussow (December 19, 1933 – April 29, 2005) was an influential American theater critic who wrote for The New York Times for 35 years. He wrote about actors such as Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Matthew Broderick and Sigourney Weaver; playwrights including Sam Shepard, David Mamet, John Guare, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee and Sir Tom Stoppard; and theater wunderkinds such as Robert Wilson, Charles Ludlam, Richard Foreman, and Julie Taymor.

He was born in New York City to parents Donald and Betty Gussow, grew up in Rockville Centre, New York on Long Island, and attended South Side High School.^[1] He went to Middlebury College, where he was editor of The Campus, graduating in 1955 with a Bachelors degree in American literature. He earned a Masters degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1956.

After two years in the U.S. Army as a newspaper writer for The Army Heidelberg, he was hired by Newsweek, where he became a movie and theater critic. His first review of a Broadway play was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1962. This began a life-long relationship with the play's author, Edward Albee, resulting in Gussow's 1999 biography of the playwright, Edward Albee: A Singular Journey.

He wrote reviews for The New York Times,^[2] starting in 1969. He authored eight books, including a series of four which were "conversations" with playwrights Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Sir Tom Stoppard. Jesse McKinley^[3] notes that Gussow's interview collections became "staples of college drama curriculums and the libraries of gossip-loving theater fans." He also wrote about Athol Fugard, Mac Wellman, Michael Gambon, Bill Irwin, Spalding Gray, and Whoopi Goldberg.

He kept working until April 6, 2005, just three weeks before his death, writing an obituary, along with fellow New York Times writer Charles McGrath, for Saul Bellow. In 2008, he was posthumously inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame along with actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein, the actors John Cullum, Lois Smith and Dana Ivey, the director Jack O’Brien, the playwright Peter Shaffer, and the librettist Joseph Stein.

In 1970 he and his wife and child, as well as actor Dustin Hoffman, lived in a townhouse at 16 West 11th Street. The townhouse building next door, 18 West 11th Street, was destroyed in a bombmaking accident. It had been inhabited by five members of the The Weathermen who had a bomb factory in the basement with, according to Gussow,^[4] enough explosives that potentially could have leveled everything on both sides of West 11th Street and West 10th Street. At the time of Gussow's death, he and his wife and child lived on West 10th Street.^[5]

Gussow died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital from bone cancer at the age of 71.^[6].

[edit] Family

Gussow is survived by his wife, Ann, and their son, Ethan, 42 years old and a younger brother, Paul Gussow.

[edit] References