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LA Times Film Critic Charles Champlin Dies At 88

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Longtime Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin has died.

The newspaper said Monday that Champlin died at his Los Angeles home Sunday. He was 88.

His son, Charles Champlin Jr., told the Times the cause was complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Champlin was principal film critic at the Times from 1967 until 1980, when he shifted to book reviews and a "Critic at Large" column taking a broader look at the arts.

A Harvard-educated native of Hammondsport, N.Y., Champlin worked at Time and Life magazines for 17 years before moving to the Times in 1965.

Current Times film critic Kenneth Turan calls Champlin "one of the great gentlemen of American film criticism."

Late actor Jack Lemmon said in a 2000 biography that Champlin was always "honest and constructive."

(© Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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