Alexander Walker dies

Alexander Walker, the Evening Standard's film critic for more than 40 years, died early today at the age of 73. A legendary figure who was as much a part of movie history as the stars he wrote about, Walker was a prolific critic and author of more than 20 books who was still working on his latest volume when he became ill earlier this summer. He died at the London Clinic while having tests for cancer.

Walker was one of the most influential - and controversial - critical voices of his age.

He had been around for so long that he knew the big names of the cinema in a way that no other critic could match: he was one of the few people who could actually call the reclusive Stanley Kubrick a friend, and was also close to stars ranging from Katharine Hepburn to Clint Eastwood and Elizabeth Taylor, whose biography he wrote. Among the many other books he wrote were the authorised biography of Peter Sellers and biographies of Audrey Hepburn and Vivien Leigh.

But he never let his closeness to the stars hinder his independence. Three times named Critic of the Year in the British Press Awards - in 1970, 1974 and 1998 - he was the scourge of the British Academy of Film and Televisions Arts (Bafta) and the centre of heated debate over controversial films such as David Cronenberg's Crash and Ken Loach's Hidden Agenda. He also had a famous spat with Ken Russell, who hit him in full view of the television cameras.

Banned at one point from press previews of Cannon Films, he nonetheless earned himself a place as part of the film establishment as a government appointee to the board of the British Film Institute and the British Screen Advisory Council.

Sir Sydney Samuelson, Britain's first Film Commissioner, once said of him: "We may not always agree with what he says, but the fact that we know he will say it regardless of what others think - and will deliver fearless praise or criticism - makes him not only the best known, but the most regularly appreciated compere of the British film industry's activities."

In 1981, he was honoured in France with the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Walker's obsession with movies started early. Raised in Portadown, Northern Ireland, he watched his first film - a Buck Jones western - in the town's Regal Cinema, in March 1934. It was his fourth birthday. By the time of his death, he had delivered his verdict on several thousand more.."I never make snap judgements," he said, in a rare interview. "I let it stew."

Before embracing journalism, Alex (as he was known by colleagues and English friends) had studied at Queen's University, Belfast, (whence he graduated in political philosophy); the College d' Europe in Bruges and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor , where he also lectured in political philosophy and comparative government.

Writing started early too. At the age of 15, he had written a radio play, which was accepted by the BBC and performed on the Northern Ireland Home Service. His appetite for films - or "the films", as they were known in Ulster - was, he later recalled, "gluttonous and undiscriminating". When only seven and staying at his parents summer house at Newcastle near the Mourne Mountains, he slipped out with the maid Louisa to see Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, despite its adult-only certificate.

More typically, he watched them at one of Portadown's three cinemas (which changed their programmes thrice weekly), accompanied by his mother, until her glasses were broken during the wartime black-out.

Thereafter, Alex wrote: "It was I who now brought back the reports of what I'd seen, and delivered elated or dismissive judgements, recounted the absurd or exciting plots, sketched in the stars' roles, acted out how they were played, repeated the dramatic bits of the dialogue - and found that I'd turned into a critic almost without realising it."

It was at this stage in Alex's life that he experienced what he later described as an epiphany: he saw Citizen Kane. It remained his favourite film, ahead of the rest of his "top five" (the others were 2001: A Space Odyssey; A Clockwork Orange; Some Like It Hot; and David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia). Only a decade later, at the age of 23, he had managed to turn his obsession into his living.

He got his break from Lord Beaverbrook, who met him in America and promised him a job on the Daily Express. It was a false dawn: on arrival in Fleet Street, Alex learned that the press baron routinely made empty promises to a string of young hopefuls. Nevertheless, Alex soon had a job in Birmingham, first on the Gazette, and then on the Birmingham Post, where he wrote editorials and features. By 1953, he began filmreviewing.

In 1960, he moved to the Evening Standard, thanks largely to a letter of recommendation to the editor, written by Kenneth More, who had been delighted by one of Alex's reviews. Alex now learned more about Beaverbrook, who sent a daily tape-recorded commentary on the paper's contents to London from Cherkley, his country house. After transcription by a secretary, it would be cut up and distributed to those with whom Beaverbrook took issue.

Undaunted by the fact that he had not seen the films which Alex had covered, Beaverbrook made him one of his frequent targets. "On the strength of your extremely warm review of Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy, Lady Dunn [Beaverbrook's longtime companion whom he married a year before his death] and I went to see it. We were obliged to walk out. Your comments, please." Alex retaliated in spirited, if playful, terms. "Dear Lord Beaverbrook, I am sorry you and Lady Dunn did not enjoy Harold Lloyd's World Of Comedy. For me, in future, high buildings will hold an additional hazard."

He survived - and indeed remained at the Standard for 43 years, a span which, it seems safe to say, will never be matched.

He was reluctant to reconcile himself to any gadgetry which he had not mastered by about 1952. This included the car (never learned to drive, preferring to bicycle or walk: he was also a keen skier), the computer and for many years the answering-machine (when, at last, he succumbed, he formulated a characteristically forthright post script to his recorded message: "And remember: smoking is the slow way to suicide")

Dressed with a precision alien to his fellow journalists, he struck a slightly incongruous figure - courteous, precise, though retaining the potential to lose his temper in incendiary manner (as Ken Russell was to discover, in the course of a longrunning feud which periodically enriched the arts world).

His flat in Maida Vale was loaded with books and paintings, but many of the latter lay against the wall, as if he never quite had time to hang them while there was another film to digest. He entitled one of his books, It's Only A Movie, Ingrid - a Hitchcock retort to Ingrid Bergman during filming. For Alex Walker, it could never be that.