Alexander Walker, 73; Veteran British Film Critic and Author

Alexander Walker, 73, a veteran British film critic and biographer of such leading Hollywood figures as Elizabeth Taylor and Stanley Kubrick, died Monday at a London clinic while undergoing tests for cancer.

Walker was the London Evening Standard’s film critic for 43 years. He also wrote 20 books on filmmaking, including “Hollywood/UK,” a well-regarded work on the postwar British film industry published in 1974.

He was close to a number of stars, including Peter Sellers, whose family authorized Walker to write Sellers’ biography. He was also a member of Kubrick’s inner circle. Yet, Walker maintained a reputation as an independent and fearless critic, whose opinions sometimes led to confrontations with the subjects of his reviews.

His most famous clash came in 1971 when he panned director Ken Russell’s “The Devils” as “monstrously indecent.” Soon after the review ran, the two were on the same television set together and Russell, in full view of the cameras, hit Walker over the head.

Walker was born in Portadown, Northern Ireland.

After studying political philosophy at Queens University in Belfast, he worked for several years at the Birmingham Post. He moved to the Evening Standard in 1960. He was thrice named Critic of the Year in the British Press Awards.