Mike Clark Dies: Longtime USA Today Film Critic Was 73
Mike Clark, the film critic for USA Today from 1985 until 2009, died July 31 at a Reston, Virginia, hospital from a head injury sustained in a fall at his Virginia home on July 27. He was 73, and had been battling liver disease for several years.
Clark’s son, Nick Clark, told USA Today that the head injury “led to bleeding around the brain, in part due to his underlying liver issues.”
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Clark, who appeared as a child contestant on The $64,000 Question in 1958, had been a film critic for the Detroit Free Press, a program planner and director of the American Film Institute Theater and then for Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts when he joined USA Today several years after the launch of the national newspaper.
A member of the National Society of Film Critics, Clark wrote DVD reviews for the online publication Media Play News after leaving USA Today.
Clark is survived by sons Nick and Alex; grandsons Benjamin and Oliver; sister Marta; and his ex-wife and close friend Cathy Crary.
Film critic and friend Leonard Maltin posted the following remembrance of Clark on Twitter:
Mike’s life had more than its share of ups and downs, but he retained his sense of humor even when he was facing mortality—his own and that of people he admired. My family and I will miss him immensely.
— Leonard Maltin (@leonardmaltin) July 31, 2020
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