Howard W. Kissel

Howard W. Kissel (MSJ76) was a member of the inaugural class of the Medill Hall of Achievement in 1997.

Kissel was the theater critic of the New York Daily News. For 15 years prior to joining the Daily News, he was the arts editor of Women's Wear Daily and W, reviewing theater, film, books and classical music and interviewing people in all the arts including Harold Pinter, Leontyne Price, Johnny Carson, and Sting.

Kissel chaired both the New York Drama Critics' Circle and the New York Film Critics' Circle. His biography of Broadway producer David Merrick, "The Abominable Showman," was published in 1993. Kissel's articles appeared in Vogue, GQ, Horizon and Video Review. Starting in 1983, he wrote the annual survey of the year in drama for the "Dictionary of Literary Biography." Kissel played Woody Allen's manager in "Stardust Memories" and appeared with Gunter Grass at Seton Hall University, reading translations from Grass's 1989 "Show Your Tongue." He lectured at Hofstra, Ohio State, and N.Y.U. His videotaped interviews with Lillian Gish and others are in the Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

Kissel died in 2012.