Interview with Mark Dawidziak

A journalism graduate of George Washington University, Mark Dawidziak has worked as a theater, film and television critic since 1979. He started his journalism career in the Washington, D.C., bureaus of Knight-Ridder Newspapers and the Associated Press. In 1983, after stints as the arts and entertainment editor at the Bristol Herald-Courier in Bristol, Virginia, and the Kingsport Times-Times in Kingsport, Tennessee, he moved to the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio as that newspaper’s TV critic (later becoming its film critic and critic-at-large). He has been the television critic for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, since 1999. A member of the Television Critics Association’s board of directors for five years, he has won five Cleveland Press Club awards for entertainment writing, as well as a Society of Professional Journalists award for coverage of minority issues.Dawidziak has written two non-fiction books about beloved TV characters: The Columbo Phile: A Casebook (The Mysterious Press, 1989), a history of Peter Falk’s Lt. Columbo, and The Night Stalker Companion: A 25th Anniversary Tribute (Pomegranate Press, 1997), a history of the Carl Kolchak character played by Darren McGavin in two TV movies and the 1974-75 ABC series. His 2003 book, Horton Foote’s The Shape of the River: The Lost Teleplay About Mark Twain (Applause Books), details the 1960 Playhouse 90 production on CBS.LEAVE A COMMENT ABOUT THE EPISODE!