Times Arts Editor-Columnist Charles Champlin to Retire

Times Arts Editor and columnist Charles Champlin will retire from The Times at the end of March after 26 years with the paper.

Champlin will continue to contribute to The Times’ daily and Sunday Calendar sections and Los Angeles Times Magazine. He will also oversee The Times book awards this year.

Champlin is currently working on a book with George Lucas. His other books include “The Flicks, or Whatever Became of Andy Hardy,” later revised as “The Films Grow Up,” and 1989’s “Back There Where the Past Was.”

In addition to writing, Champlin has been associated with several television programs over the years. Most recently he has been hosting “Champlin on Film,” which airs Saturdays at 4:30 p.m. on the Bravo cable channel.

Other television stints have included “At One With . . .” for KNBC, “Citywatchers” for KCET which he co-hosted with the late Times columnist Art Seidenbaum, and “Film Odyssey” for PBS.

He will be honored Sunday with a special governors’ award at the fifth annual awards ceremony of the American Society of Cinematographers at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills.

Champlin came to The Times as entertainment editor and columnist in 1965 and became The Times’ principal film critic in 1967.

In 1981, he shifted to book reviewing and a more general overview of the arts; his Critic at Large column became a regular feature of the Calendar section.

Before joining The Times, Champlin was arts correspondent for Time magazine in London and a correspondent and editor for Life magazine.

He is a graduate of Harvard.