Early Years
Bloom was born in Dallas, Texas, the son of Thelma Louise (née Berry) and Rudolph Lewis Bloom. He was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and attended Vanderbilt University on a sports-writing scholarship. He began his writing career at Texas Monthly and Dallas Times Herald. While a movie reviewer at the Herald, he created the humorous persona of "Joe Bob Briggs" to review "exploitation" movies.
The column soon became controversial and widely read, earning Briggs a national profile. Reviewing the movie True Romance, movie critic Roger Ebert once said, "It is the kind of film that will make the best 10 lists of such supporters of the decline of civilization as Joe Bob Briggs."
Read more about this topic: Joe Bob Briggs
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“Today’s pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase “early ripe, early rot!””
—David Elkind (20th century)
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Last of the race of them who grieve
Here leave us to die out with these
Last of the people who believe!
Silent, while years engrave the brow;
Silent—the best are silent now.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)