Judith M Kass was born in New Jersey and attended Millburn High School. She graduated from the State University of New York. Judy was the film programmer for The New York Cultural Center, freelanced in the Museum of Modern Art's Film Department and for The Film Society of Lincoln Center. She conducted radio interviews with film personalities on WBAI radio for eight years. She is the author of five books: The Hollywood Professionals (Don Siegel), Olivia de Havilland and Ava Gardner in the HBJ series, The Illustrated History of the Movies, Robert Altman, American Innovator, and The Films of Montgomery Clift. Judy contributed numerous articles to Magill's Survey of Cinema and was the picture editor for St. James Press's Actors, Directors and Designers, and Writers and Production Artists. She wrote obituaries on Gordon MacRae, Henry Fonda and Joan Bennett for the Scribner's Encyclopedia of American Lives. Besides contributing many articles about movies to diverse publications, Judy was a freelance researcher for many years. She now works in the library of The American Museum of Natural History in New York City.