Biography

This eccentric American film critic and outspoken enthusiast of the avant-garde achieved an unusual kind of fame in the last seven years of his life by dint of having one of his critical books, "Myth And Magic Of The Movies" (first published in 1947), being extensively and admiringly quoted by the trans-gender eponymous heroine of Gore Vidal's outrageous best-selling novel, "Myra Breckinridge". Vidal obtained permission from Tyler to quote from his book by saying it was a kind of tribute to him, and he always stressed that every quote was entirely accurate. Years later, Vidal said that it was a book which "had to be read to be believed" and indicated that he regarded Tyler's opinions as pretentious nonsense. Many readers of the novel initially assumed that Tyler and his book were comic inventions of Vidal's, but, after "Myra Breckinridge" had become a best-seller and a controversial film, Tyler's original was reissued and found many new readers.