Longtime professor of cinema studies at New York University.
Died from a brain injury as a result of a biking accident while traveling in Spain.
Was a passionate baseball fan who co-edited "Rotisserie League Baseball" book in 1980.
He received a PhD in the history of American civilization at Harvard in 1965. His dissertation became his first book, "F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Last Laocoön" (1967).