NEW YORK, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- John Leonard, an author, critic and former editor of "The New York Times Book Review," has died of lung cancer at the age of 69 in New York.
He died Wednesday at Mount Sinai Hospital, his stepdaughter, Jen Nessel, told the Times.
Leonard, who wrote about books, movies, television and politics, also also appeared for many years on "CBS Sunday Morning" and National Public Radio. In the late 1970s, he wrote a column on his own life for the Times, "Private Lives," and then reviewed a collection of his pieces, unfavorably, for The Nation.
"It was hard enough for some of us to work up much interest in his cats and his stoop and his coffee grinder and his fondue pot and his qualms on the first go-round, a book-length rerun is an exacerbation," he wrote.
Leonard attended Harvard without graduating. He entered journalism as an editorial assistant at the conservative "National Review," although his own political views tilted far to the left.
