Kael, Pauline

Pauline Kael was born on June 19, 1919 in Petaluma, California. Her family moved to San Francisco when she was eight. She attended the University of California, Berkeley from 1936-1940 during which time she broadcast film reviews on radio station KPFA and managed the Berkeley Cinema Guild Theaters. In 1965 she moved permanently to the east coast where she freelanced for various magazines such as Life and New Republic. McCall's hired her briefly as a full-time film critic, but it was rumored that she was fired for writing a scathing review of The Sound of Music. Kael was best known as the film critic for The New Yorker where she was hired in 1968. She resigned in 1979 to become executive consultant on film projects for Paramount Pictures Corporation. She soon became disenchanted and returned to The New Yorker in 1980 where she stayed until her retirement in 1991. She published numerous books. Most were compilations of her New Yorker columns, including I Lost it at the Movies, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Going Steady, Deeper Into Movies, Reeling, When the Lights Go Down, Hooked, Movie Love, and For Keeps. One of her lengthier columns in The New Yorker became the basis for her book The Citizen Kane Book: Raising Kane which also contained the shooting script for the film. She received numerous awards for her criticism: The 1970 American Academy of Arts and Letters award for literature, The National Book Award in 1974, as well as awards from P.E.N. in 1996 and the 1999 National Book Critics Circle's Ivan Sandrof Award. In addition, she received honorary degrees from various colleges and universities. Kael died on September 3, 2001 at the age of 82.

From the guide to the Kael mss., ca. 1939-2001, (Lilly Library (Indiana University, Bloomington) http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly)