Molly Haskell was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and grew up in a house on Pocahontas Avenue in Richmond, Virginia.[2] She was the daughter of Mary Haskell, a prominent Richmond socialite.[2]
Haskell attended St. Catherine's School,[3][4]Sweet Briar College, the University of London and the Collège de Sorbonne before settling in New York. She was presented as a debutante at the Bal du Bois.[2] In the 1960s, she worked for the French Film Office, where she wrote a newsletter about that country's films for the New York press and served as an interpreter for French film directors attending openings of their movies in New York.
Career
Haskell then worked at The Village Voice, and became a movie reviewer. Haskell also wrote for New York magazine and Vogue.
In the documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism (2009), Haskell discusses her time at Village Voice in the 1960s when she looked at film dually, "both as a film lover and as a feminist" and of how, at a young age, she was affected by the French film, Les Diaboliques (1955). She is one of the main contributors to the 2013 documentary "In Search of the Ideal Male: Made in Hollywood" where she explores the evolution of gender roles in Hollywood.
Haskell was married to fellow film critic Andrew Sarris, who died on June 20, 2012.
Haskell's brother later came out as a transgender woman and was the subject of her memoir My Brother, My Sister.[2]
Honors and awards
In 2013, Haskell received an Athena Film Festival Award for her leadership, creativity and the extraordinary example she sets for other women in the field.[7] She was American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow of 2019.[8]