‘Today’ Hosts Pay Tribute to Gene Shalit After Death at Age 100
What To Know
- The Today hosts paid tribute to longtime entertainment correspondent and film critic Gene Shalit, who died at age 100.
- The NBC morning show aired a heartfelt tribute highlighting his decades-long TV career and iconic on-air presence.
- Al Roker opened up about his time working with Shalit during his early days on Today.
The current Today cast paid tribute to one of the NBC morning show’s most memorable stars.
Former Today entertainment correspondent and film critic Gene Shalit died at the age of 100 on Friday, June 12. The Today hosts celebrated Shalit’s legendary TV career with a sweet tribute during the show’s Monday, June 15, episode.
“With his trademark mustache, bushy hair, and famous turns of phrase, Gene Shalit was as iconic as the stars he interviewed,” Savannah Guthrie said via voiceover. “For four decades, he was an integral part of the Today show team, starting as a contributor in 1970, going on to become Today‘s entertainment correspondent and movie critic. His reviews never mincing words.”
Shalit was born in 1926 to immigrant parents from Latvia. He grew up in Morristown, New Jersey, and “started his career as a journalist early, writing a humor column for his high school paper, prophetically called The Broadcaster,” Guthrie noted.
The package highlighted some of Shalit’s most memorable interviews from over the years with stars such as Kermit the Frog, Carol Channing, and Robin Williams. “Shalit always loved a good pun. He was a master at interviews, sitting down with some of Hollywood’s greatest stars: the big, bright, and even green,” Guthrie continued.
Guthrie recalled that Shalit shared six children with his wife, Nancy, who passed away from cervical cancer in 1978. Shalit also lost his daughter Emily to ovarian cancer in 2012.
“Shalit was always a champion of up-and-coming stars, from a young Harrison Ford to a little-known talk show host named Oprah [Winfrey]. His quirky style celebrated in regular parodies. In 2010, Shalit retired from Today, like any good movie, knowing when to wrap it up. But his friendship, laughter, and talent, we will forever treasure.”
After the package, Guthrie noted that Al Roker was “lucky enough to work with him all those years.” Roker used to fill in for the late Willard Scott on Today and officially succeeded him in 1996.
“He was a joy. And the fact is, he was a character without becoming a caricature. He was real, he was funny, and he was generous,” Roker gushed, to which Guthrie added, “And a real original.” Craig Melvin wrapped up the segment by stating, “Thank you, Gene.”
The same tribute package aired on Monday’s episode of the third hour of Today, this time narrated by Roker. “You know, when I first started filling in for Willard on the Today show, Gene was obviously in his heyday, and he was as funny off-screen as he was on,” he said at the top of the episode. “He just exuded this joy, this joie de vivre, and it really showed. And he didn’t want to be cruel when he had to pan something. I think the humor was a way of couching it, in a sense.”
Dylan Dreyer stated, “It’s so fun to look back because I remember growing up, watching it. But how special that you got to actually see it in person,” while Roker joked that he developed his affinity for bad puns thanks to Shalit. “You carried on the tradition well,” Melvin told Roker.
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