Melvyn (Mel) H. Gussow
Born	December 19, 1933 New York City
Died	April 29, 2005 New York City
Occupation	Theater critic, movie critic, author
Spouse	Ann Meredith Beebe Gussow
Children	Ethan Meredith Gussow
Notable credit(s)	The New York Times; Newsweek; The Army Heidelberg

Melvyn (Mel) H. Gussow (pronounced GUSS-owe^[1]; December 19, 1933 – April 29, 2005) was an influential American theater critic who wrote for The New York Times for 35 years.

Gussow was born in New York City to parents Donald and Betty Gussow, is of Lithuanian descent, grew up in Rockville Centre, New York in the Town of Hempstead on Long Island and had a younger brother named Paul. He attended South Side High School.^[2] He went to Middlebury College, where he was editor of The Campus and was graduated 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 for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1962. This review began a life-long relationship with the play's author, Edward Albee, concluding with Gussow's 1999 biography of the playwright entitled Edward Albee: A Singular Journey.

Gussow joined the New York Times in 1969, writing more than 4,000 of the paper's reviews and articles.^[1] He authored eight books, including a series of four which were considered "conversations" with playwrights Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Sir Tom Stoppard. Times arts reporter Jesse McKinley notes that Gussow's interview collections became "staples of college drama curriculums and the libraries of gossip-loving theater fans."^[1]

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.^[3]

In 2008, Gussow was inducted posthumously into the American Theater Hall of Fame at the same time as 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.^[4]

In 1970 he and his wife and son, as well as actor Dustin Hoffman, lived in apartments in a townhouse at 16 West 11th Street. The townhouse next door at number 18 was destroyed by an explosion of bomb making materials that killed or injured five members of the Weathermen organization. In an article written on the 30th anniversary of the disaster,^[5] Gussow reported an FBI finding that "had all the explosives detonated, the explosion would have leveled everything on both sides of the street." Gussow and his family remained residents of Greenwich Village after the explosion, maintaining their home on West 10th Street.^[6]

Gussow died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital from bone cancer at the age of 71.^[1][7]

Family

At his death, Gussow was survived by his wife, Ann, their son, Ethan and daughter-in-law Susan Baldomar^[8], and a younger brother, Paul Gussow^[9]

References