Melvyn H. Gussow (December 19 1933 - April 29 2005) was an influential American theater critic. His writing, including for the New York Times for 35 years, helped further the careers of: actors such as Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Matthew Broderick and Sigourney Weaver; playwrights, including Sam Shepard, David Mamet, John Guare, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee and Sir Tom Stoppard; and theatre wunderkinds such as Robert Wilson, Charles Ludlam, Richard Foreman, and Julie Taymor. He also enhanced the influence of Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, and regional theaters.
He was born in New York City to parents Donald and Betty Gussow, grew up in Rockville Centre, New York on Long Island with his family and younger brother Paul, and attended South Side High School. . "In common with Ms. Goodwin, I grew up in Rockville Centre. Her older sister, Jeanne, was a classmate of mine at South Side High School." He went to Middlebury College, where he was editor of The Campus, graduating in 1955 with a Bachelors degree in American literature. He earned a Masters degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1956.
After two years in the U.S. Army as a newspaper writer for the Army Heidelberg, he was hired by Newsweek, where he became a movie and theater critic. His first review of a Broadway play was Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1962. This began a life-long relationship with the play's author, Edward Albee, resulting in Gussow's 1999 biography of the playwright, Edward Albee: A Singular Journey.
He wrote reviews for the New York Times starting in 1969. . He authored eight books, including a series of four that were "conversations" with playwrights Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Sir Tom Stoppard. Jesse McKinley notes that Gussow's interview collections became "staples of college drama curriculums and the libraries of gossip-loving theater fans." He brought many new talents to public attention, including Athol Fugard, Mac Wellman, Michael Gambon, Bill Irwin, Spalding Gray, and Whoopi Goldberg. Gussow stated, "it is important not to over-praise good intentions and to note what's meretricious, but it is most important to praise what's meritorious."
On April 6 2005, just three weeks before his death, Gussow wrote an obituary, along with fellow New York Times writer Charles McGrath, for Saul Bellow. In 2008, Gussow posthumously was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame, along with actor and playwright Harvey Fierstein, the actors John Cullum, Lois Smith and Dana Ivey, the director Jack O’Brien, the playwright Peter Shaffer, and the librettist Joseph Stein.
In 1970 he and his wife and child, as well as actor Dustin Hoffman, lived in a townhouse at 16 West 11th Street. The building next door, 18 West 11th Street that was inhabited by five members of the The Weathermen including Cathlyn Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin, was destroyed by the bomb factory in the basement.
Gussow also owned and operated a New York City real estate agency. operated from a walkup townhouse apartment building .
He died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital from bone cancer. He was 71 and lived in Greenwich Village, New York City, with his wife Ann Gussow. .
