M. Scot Skinner was one of the first people Tucson actress Annette Hillman met when she moved to town in 1990.
He was someone that in some ways made her shudder β he was six years into what turned out to be a nearly 30-year career as theater and arts critic with the Arizona Daily Star.
Skinner never reviewed any of Hillmanβs plays, which she said probably preserved their friendship. She was one of Skinnerβs regular plus-ones when he reviewed movies, plays and concerts over the years.
βWe would go to places together and see the show and stuff and then we would end up in the car and we would spend hours talking. Thatβs what I am going to miss the most,β Hillman said hours after Skinner died late Sunday at Banner-University of Arizona Medical Center from an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection. He was 54 and had been hospitalized for three weeks.
βI thought the most interesting story that Scot had to write, which he hadnβt written yet, was the story of his life,β the Chicago native said.
βAnyone who ever met Scot has a favorite memory about him. He had a big personality β smart and funny and caring β that drew people in. All of that showed in his writing for the Star,β said Star Editor Bobbie Jo Buel.
Skinner was born in Safford on Aug. 8, 1961, the oldest of four children. When his parents divorced, his mother, Betsy Rhudy, moved the family to Tucson, where Skinner attended Catalina High School.
He attended the University of Arizona, but dropped out in his senior year after landing a job at the Star.
βHe was brilliant and exuberant. He had great language skills, great writing skills,β said John Peck, the former managing editor who hired Skinner in 1984. βHe was always looking for things to write about in a really wonderful way. I wanted him to do theater criticism.β
Peck, who left the Star in 1990 and is now presiding judge at the Ajo Justice Court, sent Skinner to the National Critics Institute for a month-long theater criticism boot camp.
βHe came back and he was a very wonderful critic. He had a great humaneness to him,β Peck said. βOften in journalism, journalists put themselves in a position of being a little above things. Scot was never that type of journalist. He was personable, he was witty, he was funny and he really cared about what he was writing about.β
Former Star editor and restaurant critic Colette Bancroft recalled how Skinner would work on two stories simultaneously, toggling between two computer screens. He would write a paragraph or two of one story, then pop over to the second. Back and forth, back and forth, until both were finished.
βThat sort of spoke to his energy and how his mind worked,β said Bancroft, who left the Star in 1995 to work for the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. βAs an editor I really trusted him as a critic. He really had good judgment and mature judgments.β
In addition to covering theater, Skinner also covered music and movies. One of his early starstruck moments came when he did a face-to-face interview with Tucson native Linda Ronstadt in Los Angeles in 1987.
βI was starstruck, nervous and not very skilled. (Alfredo) Araiza, the photographer who accompanied me, saved my butt several times by jumping in and asking perfect questions (he knew more than me about her and the music),β Skinner recalled in a late 2013 blog post on his website (mscotskinner.com). βMy story, which came up short in every way, came out the following Sunday. Bob Cauthorn, my smarty-pants colleague, complimented me anyway and then told me a dozen things I should have done. He was right, of course.β
On Monday Lee Skinner recalled his brotherβs sense of humor and deep compassion and sensitivity.
βHe was somebody who had an incredible affinity to feel for others,β he said. βHe would make friends with an enormous slice of life, and they were all equally important to him. He managed to keep and maintain friendships in a way I never could.β
Lee Skinner said the family was last together at Thanksgiving when they had a reunion in Las Vegas, one of many trips Scot Skinner took with his mother. After he left the Star in 2011, he freelanced public relations and taught journalism for the past three years at Pima Community College.
βItβs just hard to imagine life without him right now,β Rhudy said. βI really canβt believe it yet.β
In addition to his mother and brother, Skinner is survived by his stepfather, Walter Rhudy; his brother Dustin Skinner of Tucson; and his brother-in-law Levent Ileri of Maryland. He is predeceased by his sister, Shelly Skinner, and father, Melvin Skinner.
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at Christ Presbyterian Church, 6565 E. Broadway.
