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Jay ScottJeffrey Scott Beaven (October 4, 1949 – July 30, 1993), known professionally by his pen name Jay Scott, was a Canadian film critic.[1] Early lifeScott was born in Lincoln, Nebraska and was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico as a Seventh-Day Adventist,[1] whose doctrine virtually prohibited movies.[2] Scott studied art history at New College of Florida in Sarasota,[3] and later took acting classes at the University of New Mexico.[4] CareerMoving to Canada in 1969 as a draft evader, he settled in Calgary and began writing film reviews for the Calgary Albertan a few years later.[1] He won a National Newspaper Award in 1975 for a review of Theatre Passe Muraille's stage production The Alberta Cowboy Show,[4] and moved to Toronto when he was hired by The Globe and Mail in 1977.[1] With The Globe and Mail, he wrote an entertainment gossip column for his first year, before transferring to become a film reviewer.[4] With the Globe and Mail, Scott became Canada's most influential film critic,[1][2] winning two more National Newspaper Awards for his writing,[1] and is still widely remembered as one of the best and most influential film critics in the history of Canadian journalism.[5] He has also been credited as the catalyst for a major shift in the newspaper's own arts reporting style in his era, from a staid, strictly repertorial style toward more distinctive, colourful writing.[4] He was also the host of Jay Scott's Film International, a film series on TVOntario,[3] and published three non-fiction books on both film and art: Midnight Matinees, Changing Woman: The Life and Art of Helen Hardin, and The Prints of Christopher Pratt.[3] From 1967 to 1980, he was in a relationship with Mary Bloom, whom he had met while studying in Sarasota.[3] After his divorce from Bloom, he came out as gay and began a relationship with Gene Corboy.[3] He was diagnosed HIV+ in 1986.[4] DeathHe died of AIDS-related causes in 1993.[6] He wrote for the Globe and Mail until his death, and had been working on a book about Norman Jewison.[1] On the night of his death, TVOntario pulled a scheduled rerun of Film International to broadcast a tribute to Scott, including a screening of one of his all-time favorite films, Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless.[1] Roger Ebert eulogized Scott as a "supremely well-informed critic who was able to translate his knowledge into superb prose that transmitted his passion for the movies."[1] Clint Eastwood sent an unsolicited $5,000 donation to Toronto's Casey House AIDS hospice in Scott's memory.[7] At the 1993 Toronto International Film Festival, filmmaker John Greyson dedicated his Special Jury Citation for Zero Patience to Scott's memory.[8] LegacyA collection of his reviews, Great Scott! The Best of Jay Scott's Movie Reviews, was published posthumously in 1994; proceeds from the book sales were donated to the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research.[9] In 2009, the Toronto Film Critics Association established an annual award for emerging talent in the Canadian film industry, the Jay Scott Prize, in Scott's memory.[10] The winner of the award receives $10,000.[11] He is the subject of an essay, written by current Globe and Mail film critic Barry Hertz, in the 2024 book A Nation’s Paper: The Globe and Mail in the Life of Canada.[4] References
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