Ruth Batchelor; Founded Critics Group
Ruth Batchelor, a lyricist and newspaper and television critic who founded the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. in 1975 and saw it develop into a major influence on the motion picture industry, has died in Florida.
A spokesman said she was 57 and died Thursday in Miami of cancer.
Most recently she had been entertainment critic for WSVN-TV in Miami. Earlier in her career she had been a reporter on “Good Morning America” and a correspondent for the London Sunday Times and the satiric British magazine Punch.
She wrote lyrics for several of the songs Elvis Presley sang in films, including “Because of Love,” “Cotton Candy Lands,” “King of the Whole Wide World,” “Thanks to the Rolling Sea” and “Where Do You Come From?”
She also wrote words for “I Will Follow,” the theme from the 1966 film remake of “Stagecoach” and translated American songs for such vocalists as Charles Aznavour and Louis Bonfa.
She headed the Film Critics Assn. from 1975 to 1978 and moved to Florida five years ago.
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