Mark Dawidziak

Mark Dawidziak is an American author and critic.

Early life

Dawidziak was born in Huntington, New York, on September 7, 1956. He is a graduate of Harborfields High School, class of 1974.

Journalism career

A journalism graduate of George Washington University, 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). He currently is the television critic for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio.

Television histories

Dawidziak has written two non-fiction books about 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.