Memories are short in the media, and for many, the news that Barry Norman is about to quit his Film Review programme on the Sky Premier cable channel is like hearing James Callaghan announce from the House of Lords that he is quitting politics.
But for 26 years, from 1972 to 1998, as presenter of the BBC's weekly film slot, Barry Norman was perhaps the nation's best-known film critic - rumpled, genial, avuncular, with bags under his eyes which bespoke a hard evening's viewing, and which women viewers were alleged to find sexy. The programme went through a phase of trying out alternative presenters in the 70s: including Iain Johnstone and a squeaky-voiced young Tina Brown - but only Barry had the necessary sang-froid.
He became an institution, despite the graveyard slot in which that programme was (and often still is) scheduled - acquiring, like all legends, a catchphrase that he never actually said: "And why not?".
Then in 1998, during a spasm in which the BBC lost other big names like Desmond Lynam and Frank Skinner, Barry said he was leaving for a better offer at Sky because the modern corporation did not value him enough - a slight display of grumpiness which perhaps prefigures his bowing out now.
Barry's style now looks very sedate compared to the intense young guys and gorgeous babes doing film shows - and certainly compared to Jonathan Ross's dazzling enthusiasm and connoisseurship.
He hails from an era when his BBC show was virtually the only outlet for mainstream cinema comment: before the era of subscription movie channels and the internet. He was the voice of unpretentious good taste and common sense. He reviewed what was on at the multiplex, guiding viewers to what they were actually likely to enjoy and be able to see locally.
The format of his show was sometimes very placid, especially time-consuming features like plodding through the American top ten box office. But Barry's interviews were models of easy-going charm, especially his classic interview with Michelle Pfeiffer in which Barry, endearingly, made no secret of his crush on Michelle, and we all knew how he felt.
But he gave some tough questions to Robert de Niro which famously resulted in an off-camera nose-to-nose aggressive encounter. (Let's see the young whippersnappers stand up to Travis Bickle!) I remember his breezy, feelgood encounter with Steven Soderbergh, amiably riding around Cannes with him in a car with when Soderbergh had just won the Palme d'Or for sex, lies and videotape.
Now Barry is quitting, citing the dumbing-down of the movies; it's a perennial complaint. Perhaps he's just had enough. Barry Norman did the film world a favour in leading the complaints about people talking during the movie, a sin which many chains now explicitly forbid before the film starts. And he always had a buoyant, infectious love of cinema. Well done, Mr Norman!
