The Unforgiving Critique: How Pauline Kael Nearly Shattered Five Hollywood Legends

The Impact of Pauline Kael on Hollywood

If there is one thing that could always be said about the legendary New Yorker critic Pauline Kael, it’s that her reviews were incredibly entertaining to read. Whether she was showering a film with effusive praise or eviscerating an actor who had the temerity to do something she didn’t like, Kael was a compulsively readable writer.

Over the years, Kael’s intense readability and position at an institution as prestigious as the New Yorker perhaps gave her an outsized importance in Hollywood. Her reviews could legitimately affect a film’s box office prospects, and any actor or director who found themselves in her crosshairs could have been forgiven for worrying about their careers.

The Personal Touch of Kael's Reviews

Kael wasn’t just known for writing bad reviews that raised a chuckle from the average reader. She was notorious for approaching her work from a very personal angle, which meant that quite often her reviews could be coloured by the obvious disdain she felt for certain people working in Hollywood.

From a leading man who was convinced Kael was out to get him as revenge for a personal slight to a legendary director who considered suing her for libel, here are five Hollywood careers almost destroyed by Pauline Kael:

1. Stanley Kubrick
2. Robert Redford
3. Orson Welles
4. Veronica Cartwright
5. Oliver Stone

(Credits: Far Out / Rollins Maxwell / Ken Dare, Los Angeles Times)