Molly Haskell

Molly Haskell
at a New York Barnes & Noble book signing
Born	September 29, 1939 Charlotte, North Carolina

Molly Haskell (born September 29, 1939) is an American feminist film critic and author. She contributed to The Village Voice, first as a theatre critic, then as a movie reviewer; and from there moved on to New York magazine and Vogue. Her most influential book is From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies (1974; revised and reissued in 1987). She co-hosted Turner Classic Movies's The Essentials with Robert Osborne in 2006 for one season. In 2013, Haskell received an Athena Film Festival Award for her leadership, creativity and the extraordinary example she sets for other women in the field.

Molly Haskell was born on September 29, 1939, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and grew up in Richmond, Virginia. She attended Sweet Briar College, the University of London and the Collège de Sorbonne before settling in New York. While in Paris, she wrote a newsletter about French films for the New York press. For the opening of new films in America, within the newsletter she interpreted the directors that came to America.

Haskell then worked at The Village Voice, and became a movie reviewer. Haskell finally found a steady career with New York magazine and Vogue.

In the documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism (2009), Haskell discusses her time at Village Voice in the 1960s when she looked at film dually, "both as a film lover and as a feminist" and of how, at a young age, she was affected by the French film, Les Diaboliques (1955). She is one of the main contributors to the 2013 documentary "In Search of the Ideal Male: Made in Hollywood" where she explores the evolution of gender roles in Hollywood.