“Are there any Ivies with non-Jewish presidents?” Slavitt jokes.

He excelled as a Bulldog, publishing his poetry in top-notch publications like the Yale Review and the Chicago Review. “I was a phenom,” Slavitt says happily.

After being named a Scholar of the House—a senior-year honors program that allowed the blossoming writer to waive his fourth-year classes—Slavitt graduated magna cum laude with a degree in English.

“There’s a certain kind of self-starting person who doesn’t need courses,” he says. He recalls “hanging around” a lot during his senior year, mostly spending time at Yale’s exclusive literary society, the Elizabethan Club.

After picking up a Master’s degree from Columbia, Slavitt moved into the professional world. In 1958, he was hired as a film critic for Newsweek—or, as he describes it, a “flicker picker.”

“It’s every English major’s dumb idea,” Slavitt says. “I can always go to New York and review books and novels for Time or Newsweek.”

It wasn’t, of course, as simple as that. Slavitt’s father was friends with a top official at the magazine, and helped his son procure an interview.

“You’re the third most important reviewer in the world just because of your position,” Slavitt says, recalling his experience as a critic.

But it was never his intention to make a career of thumbs-up, thumbs-down. Slavitt said he commuted to film screenings on the same train as Bosley Crowther, The New York Times’ now-legendary longtime critic and also a Westchester resident.

“I thought, how humiliating,” Slavitt said. “This man is a living joke and doesn’t understand it.” He recalls attending Frankie Avalon movies and being disgusted by the profession.

“I also found I could get [a film] a terrible review in the Times if I could sit in [Crowther’s] favorite chair” at the theater, he laughs.

Slavitt left Newsweek in 1965, set on a career as a writer. He has since produced a prolific collection of over 80 works, ranging from poetry to novels to Latin translations.

“MY LIFE IS MY HOBBY”

In 2002, Slavitt’s son Evan launched an unsuccessful bid for Massachusetts attorney general. The younger Slavitt was unable to attain the 10,000 signatures needed to earn a spot on the ballot, but he encouraged his father to take a stab at the political process.

“Why don’t you run for state rep?” Slavitt remembers his son asking him. “You only need 150 signatures.”