He made a living out of eating, cooking and drinking; Tom Fitzmorris reviewed and talked about dining and preparing food for more than 50 years in New Orleans.
Fitzmorris died yesterday at the age of 74. He had been battling Alzheimer's Disease.
He broadcast on radio in New Orleans starting in 1975. In 1988 he joined the WWL Family.
“The Food Show With Tom Fitzmorris” was broadcast on 870am, 105.3fm, WWL HD2 and 1350am over the years.
He would often broadcast from his kitchen as he cooked a meal or from a restaurant where he hosted Eat Club events.
Fitzmorris began his food-writing career with a weekly restaurant review column in 1972, while still in college at the University of New Orleans.
UNO said in a biography of the food critic, "Fitzmorris calls himself a walking New Orleans cliché: born in the city on Mardi Gras, delivered by a jazz musician-obstetrician and never absent from his hometown longer than the six weeks after Hurricane Katrina. His mother was a fabulous French-Creole cook at home."
The university said that Fitzmorris' career was inspired by a mentor he met at UNO.
"The UNO campus was where he met a history professor who would change his life and become his mentor: Richard Collin. When not chronicling or teaching history, Collin wrote about food like few others had, as the city’s first newspaper restaurant critic, starting at the States-Item in 1972."
That same year, Fitzmorris started his broadcast career.
"He had fallen in love with radio as a young boy and dreamed of one day working in broadcasting. At UNO, he was one of the original staffers of WWNO, which signed on the air as the campus radio station in February 1972."
He graduated from the University of New Orleans with a bachelor’s degree in Drama and Communications in 1974.
Fitzmorris previously attended Jesuit and Archbishop Rummel High Schools.
He published several cookbooks and other books including restaurant reviews and compilations of his columns over the years.
Funeral plans are pending.
