Gerald Mast (May 13, 1940 – September 1, 1988) was an author, film historian, and member of the University of Chicago faculty.
Mast was born in Los Angeles in 1940;[1] his family included his mother, Bessie, and Linda, his sister.
At a time when public figures in the arts often remained unwilling to be associated with the disease,[4] Mast requested that his obituaries include his cause of death.
[3] In a retrospective in Cinema Journal, Tag Gallagher compared him to French film critic Jean Mitry, and described him as America's "film-scholar laureate".
[6] Mast's partner, actor Peter Burnell, best known for his role as Dr. Mike Powers on the NBC daytime soap opera The Doctors, preceded him in death.