Kathleen Tynan

If art is long and life is short, reviewing is barely the sizzle of spit on a hot iron. So why should we care about Kenneth Tynan, 18 years after his death and 40 years after his glory days as a theater critic in London? Not for his part in devising "Oh! Calcutta!" and other minor scandals of the '60s and '70s; nor even for his spirited and significant role in choosing plays at Britain's National Theatre under Sir Laurence Olivier.

If art is long and life is short, reviewing is barely the sizzle of spit on a hot iron. So why should we care about Kenneth Tynan, 18 years after his death and 40 years after his glory days as a theater critic in London? Not for his part in devising "Oh! Calcutta!" and other minor scandals of the '60s and '70s; nor even for his spirited and significant role in choosing plays at Britain's National Theatre under Sir Laurence Olivier.

The new, third edition of Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia adds the name of Kenneth Peacock Tynan (1927-1980) and gives him an epitaph that might have pleased him. Secretly. "English drama critic," say the encyclopedists. "Immensely influential during the 1950s and '60s. Tynan eloquently supported the raw new drama of the ANGRY YOUNG MEN and was a leading figure in the post-World War II renaissance of the British theatre."

It may seem odd that the editors of a collection of profiles by the late Kenneth Tynan--possibly the best theater critic writing in English since George Bernard Shaw--would start with a couple of pieces he wrote for his school magazine. Tynan's youthful tribute to Orson Welles, for instance, is all velvet swatches of aged certitude--the kind that only adolescents can muster. Why reprint it? Perhaps to show what the grown-up Tynan could do in four words.

On the note pad is the name Faye Dunaway, on the phone is Carl Bernstein and in the wing chair is Kathleen Tynan, willowy widow, author and friend of the famous. She is not famous herself, but she married famous (legendary British drama critic Kenneth Tynan) and dates famous (film director Barbet ("Barfly") Schroeder). Her tailored herringbone jacket looks like one of Armani's, but she says it's "nobody's," meaning nobody famous. She has written a book, "The Life of Kenneth Tynan."

It may seem odd that the editors of a collection of profiles by the late Kenneth Tynan--possibly the best theater critic writing in English since George Bernard Shaw--would start with a couple of pieces he wrote for his school magazine. Tynan's youthful tribute to Orson Welles, for instance, is all velvet swatches of aged certitude--the kind that only adolescents can muster. Why reprint it? Perhaps to show what the grown-up Tynan could do in four words.

Director Karel Reisz and writer Harold Pinter's dazzling 1981 The French Lieutenant's Woman (KTLA, Sunday at 8 p.m.) stars Meryl Streep as an enigmatic Victorian-era beauty who entrances Jeremy Irons' proper British gentleman. This ravishing, mesmerizing film becomes a wry comment on what has become of personal morality between 1867 and the present. In The Girl Who Came Between Them, a new TV movie (KNBC, Sunday at 9 p.m.), a vet and his wife bring over his Vietnamese daughter.

The Scene: Bookend parties Friday night for the West Coast premiere of "A Brief History of Time," based on Cambridge University professor Stephen Hawking's life and his concepts of the origin and fate of the universe, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Before the screening, Shirley MacLaine hosted a small reception at the Peninsula Hotel. Afterward, there was a larger confluence of bodies in the Academy lobby.

On the note pad is the name Faye Dunaway, on the phone is Carl Bernstein and in the wing chair is Kathleen Tynan, willowy widow, author and friend of the famous. She is not famous herself, but she married famous (legendary British drama critic Kenneth Tynan) and dates famous (film director Barbet ("Barfly") Schroeder). Her tailored herringbone jacket looks like one of Armani's, but she says it's "nobody's," meaning nobody famous. She has written a book, "The Life of Kenneth Tynan."

The new, third edition of Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia adds the name of Kenneth Peacock Tynan (1927-1980) and gives him an epitaph that might have pleased him. Secretly. "English drama critic," say the encyclopedists. "Immensely influential during the 1950s and '60s. Tynan eloquently supported the raw new drama of the ANGRY YOUNG MEN and was a leading figure in the post-World War II renaissance of the British theatre."