Michael Wilmington(1946-2022)
- Actor
Michael Wilmington was born in Elkhorn, Wisconsin, on November 23,
1946. He was the son of Martin Wilmington, an economics professor at
Pace College in New York City, and of Edna Tulane Wilmington, a cum
laude masters degree graduate of the University of Wisconsin in
Madison, and a painter, sculptor, portrait artist, illustrator,
draughtsman, newspaper columnist and teacher. His parents were divorced
and Edna brought him up, in Arlington, Virginia, Chicago and Williams
Bay, Wisconsin, as a single mother, without child support or alimony.
(She died, at 94, in 2009.) Michael graduated from William Bay
(Wisconsin) High School, where he was on the basketball and football
teams, was captain of the forensics team and was sports editor of the
annual. He graduated in 1964, and attended the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, where he majored in English (Honors), where he was
also active in dramatics as both actor and director, was chair of the
Memorial Union Film Committee and was the movie critic for two years
for the student paper, the Daily Cardinal. In Madison, Wilmington also
co-wrote the book, "John Ford" with Joseph McBride and became the movie
critic for the alternative weekly, Isthmus of Madison, winning five
Milwaukee Press Club Awards at Isthmus for best arts criticism. He
eventually left for Los Angeles, to become movie critic and editor for
both the L. A. Weekly and L. A. Style. From 1984 to 1993, he was a
movie critic and writer for the Los Angeles Times and, in 1993, he was
elected Vice President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. In
1993, Wilmington was named the lead movie critic at the Chicago
Tribune, after the departure of Dave Kehr, who had replaced longtime
Tribune movie critic and "At the Movies" TV host Gene Siskel in 1986.
(Siskel became movie columnist at the Tribune from 1986 until his death
in 1999.) While at the Tribune, Wilmington won or shared two Peter
Lisagor awards for arts criticism. He was also the the on-air movie
critic for cable channel CLTV, where he was nominated for two other
Lisagors. Wilmington left the Tribune in 2007. In 2008, he became movie
and DVD critic for Movie City News.