Gene Shalit, a movie critic and arts reporter for the "Today" show over four decades who was known for his puffy hair, oversized handlebar mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns, has died. He was 100. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.

Shalit's family announced the death Friday to NBC News, saying in a statement that he "passed away peacefully today after 100 years of an amazing life."

Shalit joined "Today" as a contributor in 1970 and became arts editor in 1973, later settling in for his segment, "Critic's Corner." When he left the show in 2010, he was one of the last high-profile film critics on a major network.

"What resonated above his unusual appearance was his incredible wit, his remarkable intelligence. But he didn't pound you over the head with it. He amused you. He enlightened and amused whatever subject he was on," Guy Ludwig, Shalit's producer for more than 20 years, wrote in an essay at the time of Shalit's retirement.

It was no coincidence that Chicago critics Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel's local "thumbs-up, thumbs-down" movie-review program, "Sneak Previews," went national on PBS in the late 1970s and that "Today" show's ABC rival, "Good Morning America," hired Joel Siegel to be its movie critic in 1981.

"Shalit was instrumental in changing the balance of critical power in America. When he began his 'Today' tenure, newspapers and magazines were the primary sources for movie reviews. That's where cinematic opinion was sparked and shaped," The Plain Dealer wrote in 2010, calling Shalit "Daniel Boone in a bow tie and Groucho glasses."

Shalit started as an entertainment columnist for McCall's magazine, eventually becoming senior film critic for Look magazine in 1968 and writing for Ladies' Home Journal. His popularity in magazines led to an offer from NBC.

"No one at NBC had seen him. They'd only read his stuff. So he walked into this executive's office and the executive took one look at him and said, 'Mr. Shalit, have you ever thought of radio?'" wrote Ludwig. "They didn't know how the public would react to someone who looked so different from people who were typically on TV in 1967."

On the air, Shalit was a middle-of-the-road critic. Of 1986's classic "Stand By Me," he said it was different from other movies about youth "because of instead of grossing you out, 'Stand by You' is engrossing."

"Many critics will give so much of the plot of a movie away that they destroy the movie for the viewer. ... I just don't give away the story," he told The Associated Press in 1993.

He liked "Enemy at the Gates," starring Jude Law, calling it "a vivid dramatization of one of history's titanic turning points." But he called "Brokeback Mountain "wildly overpraised, but not by me" and drew condemnation from GLAAD for calling Jake Gyllenhaal's character, Jack, a "sexual predator." Shalit apologized.

He called "Frozen" "very cool." He said the oddball title of "The Men Who Stare at Goats" was "heard to bleat," and his review of "The Lovely Bones" read in part: "There's no bones about it."

He began reviewing on air the year of "Patton" and "Love Story" and ended his run with a critique of "Shrek Forever After," of which he noted that the "bellow fellow is now a mellow fellow." One highlight of this tenure was his descent into a fit of giggles while interviewing Carol Channing.

He called a remake of "King Kong" so "gargantuan that I must create new words to describe it: fabularious … a brilliantological humongousness of marvelosity." His take on Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Alice Walker's "The Color Purple": "It should be against the law not to see it."

In a 1981 interview with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, Belushi said Shalit's hair looked like "an ant farm on fire." Nevertheless, he peppered his guest with so many questions about their daily life that it felt like therapy. He asked both comedians what their last meals would be. "What do you want to be doing 10 years from now, John?"