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Penelope Gilliatt

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Critic

The Resume

    (March 25, 1932-May 9, 1993)
    Born in London, United Kingdom
    Birth name was Penelope Ann Douglass Connor
    Film critic, novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter
    Reviewed films for ‘The Observer’ (1960-67) and ‘The New Yorker’ (1967-79)
    At the ‘New Yorker,’ alternated with critic <11073>Pauline Kael Wrote the novels ‘One by One’ (1965), ‘A State of Change’ (1967) and ‘Moral Matters’ (1983)
    Short story collections include ‘Nobody’s Business’ (1972) and ‘Splendid Lives’ (1977)
    Wrote the screenplay for ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ (1971)

Why she might be annoying:

    After her parents separated, she ran off to America, with each parent thinking she was living with the other one.
    She admitted to taking liberties with quotes in her interviews.
    Quite a few of her later movie reviews lapsed into minute descriptions of the plot without any opinion on the quality of the film.
    Her drinking became so heavy that ‘The New Yorker’ sent minders from the fact-checking department to shadow her and make sure she actually watched a movie in its entirety before she reviewed it.
    She was fired as a critic from ‘The New Yorker’ after she wrote a profile of Graham Greene that lifted over 800 words from an article in ‘The Nation.’

Why she might not be annoying:

    She earned a scholarship to Bennington College.
    She won a fiction-writing contest sponsored by the British edition of ‘Vogue,’ joined the magazine staff, and became the features editor.
    Her second husband, playwright John Osborne, left her for her best friend.
    The screenplay for ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ was nominated for an Oscar and won awards from the New York Film Critics Society, the National Society of Film Critics and the Writers Guild of America.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 88.89% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 9 Votes: 77.78% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 12 Votes: 50.0% Annoying