Cowboy in the Shade
December 9, 2018 · culture, Books & Arts, Magazine
Given their comparable movie careers, why is John Wayne still an icon while Gary Cooper is all but forgotten?
Cultural Critic and Biographer
Terry Teachout
12 articles 1997–2018
Terry Teachout was a prominent American cultural critic, biographer, and playwright who served as the drama critic for The Wall Street Journal and a columnist for Commentary. He contributed essays and reviews to The Weekly Standard spanning arts, culture, and literary subjects from 1997 to 2018. He was widely regarded as one of America's foremost critics of theater, music, and the arts until his death in 2022.
His Shining Hour
January 8, 2016 · book reviews, Magazine, Terry Teachout
Songwriters are the unknown soldiers of popular music. A few, like Irving Berlin and George Gershwin, have won lasting fame, but more often than not they labor in the shadows. Unless a songwriter has a parallel career as a performer, as did Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, he does his job behind…
All but the Jews
November 2, 2015 · book reviews, Magazine, Terry Teachout
Of the making of books about Franklin D. Roosevelt, there is no end—and nearly all of them are admiring, often to the point of outright adoration. It started with the memoirists, most of whom took the utmost care to paper over Roosevelt’s flaws in their obsequious haste to document their own…
The Song Is Ended
March 2, 2015 · book reviews, Magazine, Terry Teachout
What is America’s greatest contribution to the arts? Time was when many, perhaps most, people would have pointed to the Broadway musical as the likeliest candidate for admission to the pantheon. Theatergoers around the world have long rejoiced in the delights of the genre, including some whom one…
Maugham’s the Word
August 30, 2010 · Magazine, Terry Teachout, Books and Arts
Cases Closed
December 14, 2009 · Magazine, Terry Teachout, Books and Arts
Get Real
A Fine Mess
November 9, 2009 · Magazine, Terry Teachout, Books and Arts
Homer & Langley
Seeing It Now
July 13, 2009 · Magazine, Terry Teachout, Books and Arts
Friendlyvision
The Classic
October 11, 2004 · Magazine, Terry Teachout, Books and Arts
Just Enough Liebling
Horse Opera
June 3, 2002 · Magazine, Terry Teachout, Books and Arts
IF YOU LONG TO MEET ODD PEOPLE, it's hard to top Manhattanites who go to movies on weekdays. To be sure, I am among their number, but at least I have an excuse: I write about movies. The viewers I have in mind are the pure-hearted obsessives, overwhelmingly male and uniformly unattractive, who…
The Experience of America
March 25, 2002 · Magazine, Terry Teachout, Books and Arts
The Immediate Experience Movies, Comics, Theatre and Other Aspects of Popular Culture by Robert Warshow Harvard University Press, 302 pp., $18.95 AMONG my prized possessions is a battered copy of Robert Warshow's "The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre and Other Aspects of Popular…
THE COMMON CULTURE, R. I. P.
October 13, 1997 · Magazine, Terry Teachout, Books and Arts
I don't watch much TV news anymore, but when I heard David Brinkley was retiring, I made a point of tuning in to ABC's This Week to see him say goodbye. It was business as usual for the first 45 minutes or so: One of Marv Albert's lawyers did a star turn, and Roy Romer played his why-we-need-…