Thomas William Shales was born in Elgin, Illinois, on November 3, 1944, to Clyde Shales (who had once been Elgin's mayor) and Hulda Shales, and graduated from Elgin High School in 1962.[1][2][3] He attended Elgin Community College[1] before transferring to American University in Washington, D.C., where he earned a degree in journalism and was editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Eagle, for the 1966–1967 academic year, as well as the paper's movie critic.[4][5][6][7][3]
Shales's first professional job was with radio station WRMN/WRMN-FM in Elgin at the age of 18. He served as the station's disc jockey, local news reporter, writer and announcer, on both the AM and FM bands. He later worked with Voice of America as a producer of broadcasts to the Far East.[4]
Career
Shales worked as entertainment editor at the D.C. Examiner, a tabloid newspaper, from 1968 to 1971.[1] He joined The Washington Post as a writer in the Style section in 1972, was named chief television critic in July 1977, and was appointed TV editor in June 1979.[4] His reviews were syndicated in newspapers nationwide.[7] By 2006, his combined income from his salary and his syndication earnings neared $400,000 a year.[1][7]
Shales was known for his withering putdowns of shows he disliked, and was nicknamed "Terrible Tom" and "the Terror of the Tube".[7] His blunt style could polarize; Forbes Media Guide Five Hundred, 1994 wrote: "Forget the middle ground, Shales either loves it or hates it – and his reviews of TV shows and personalities are often unabashed paroxysms of that love or hate.... Like the medium he covers, Shales turns out fast-paced and amusing fare that often lacks depth".[8] His influence was such that shows he panned would sometimes include unflattering references to him as inside jokes.[1] Shales called such barbs "a TV critic's only shot at immortality".[7]
His influence also extended to other critics. Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire who founded and served as president of the Chicago Film Critics Association, described him as setting a standard with writing that was "incredibly funny, creative, inventive and smart" and with a style more akin to a barroom discussion with readers than a lecture.[3]
In 2006, Shales ceased to be a staff writer for the Post and went on contract, where he remained until 2010, when he was laid off entirely by the newspaper.[14][15] From 2012 to 2014, he wrote a column for RogerEbert.com.[16][17]
Books
Shales published four books, including two he co-wrote with James Andrew Miller. In 2002, Shales and Miller published Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, which covers the history of the sketch-comedy variety show, and provides a behind-the-scenes look at its stars and production process.[18] The book was re-released in 2015 to coincide with Saturday Night Live's 40th anniversary. The updated edition contained over 100 pages of new material.[19]
In 2011, Shales and Miller published their second book together, Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, which chronicles the history of the network ESPN from its infancy in 1979 through 2010.[20] In 2015, Focus Features optioned the book to adapt it into a film.[21]
Legends: Remembering America's Greatest Stars. New York: Random House. 1989. ISBN978-0394575216
James Andrew Miller (2002). Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. New York: Little, Brown and Co. ISBN978-0316295062
Miller, James; Shales, Tom (2011). Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN (1st Back Bay pbk. ed.). New York: Back Bay Books. ISBN9780316043007. OCLC668192506.
^Temkin, Jody (October 22, 1995), "Test Your Celebrity Knowledge With This 'Who's Who?' Quiz", Chicago Tribune, archived from the original on September 30, 2012, retrieved June 11, 2011, Even when he was a student at Elgin High School in the 1960s, Tom Shales wasn't likely to be found at any homecoming celebrations ... But former classmates don't need to see Shales at homecoming to play that "whatever happened to so-and-so" game. Shales has been in the national spotlight as the television critic for the Washington Post since 1977, winning a Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1988.
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