Background
Canby, Vincent was born on July 27, 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of Lloyd and Katharine Anne (Vincent) Canby.
Canby, Vincent was born on July 27, 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Son of Lloyd and Katharine Anne (Vincent) Canby.
He attended boarding school in Christchurch, Virginia, with novelist William Styron. And the two became friends. After war service in the Pacific theater, he attended Dartmouth College and then was employed as a film critic by Variety for six years.
He reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there. He introduced Styron to the works of East.B. White and Ernest Hemingway. And the pair hitchhiked to Richmond to buy Foreign Whom the Bell Tolls.
Canby was an enthusiastic supporter of many filmmakers, notably Woody Allen, who credited Canby"s rave review of Take The Money and Run as a crucial point in his career.
In the early 1990s, Canby switched his attention from film to theatre. He was named the chief theatre critic in 1994.
The career of Vincent Canby is discussed in the film Foreign the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism by contemporary critics such as The Nation’s Stuart Klawans, who talks of Canby’s influence for a quarter century as America’s most prominent "make-or-break" critic, and A.O. Scott, who praises his New York Times predecessor for "always finding the right tone" in his reviews. He died from cancer in Manhattan, New York City, on October 15, 2000.
Almost three years later, upon the death of Bob Hope, the late Canby"s byline appeared on the front page of The New York Times.
Canby had written the bulk of Hope"s obituary for the newspaper several years before.
Served with United States Naval Reserve, 1944-1946.