Brooks Atkinson, American theatre critic (died 1984)

Justin Brooks Atkinson was an American theater critic. He worked for The New York Times from 1922 to 1960. In his obituary, the Times called him "the theater's most influential reviewer of his time." Atkinson became a Times theater critic in the 1920s and his reviews became very influential. He insisted on leaving the drama desk during World War II to report on the war, and received the Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for his work as the Moscow correspondent for the Times. He returned to the theater beat in the late 1940s, until his retirement in 1960.