Michael Shmith

Michael Shmith (born 7 July 1949) is an Australian journalist and writer.

Shmith is the son of Athol Shmith and his wife Patricia "Bambi" née Tuckwell (they later divorced).^[1] He worked at The Age newspaper in Melbourne from 1981 until 1995, when he became communications director for the Australian Ballet.^[2] Shmith was then a senior writer for The Age^[3] and its arts editor from 1985 to 1993. From 2010 to 2017 he was the paper's opera critic. He resigned from that position in August 2017 over a disagreement with The Age's arts editor Hannah Francis about the paper's dwindling coverage of the arts.^[4] Since then, he writes reviews for the Australian Book Review.^[5]

He edited the 1999 Ebury Publishing edition of The New Pocket Kobbé's Opera Book with his stepfather George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood.^[6] Shmith's 2019 book, Cranlana: The First 100 Years, described the garden and house of Sidney Myer and Merlyn Myer in Toorak, Melbourne.^[7] His biography of Merlyn Myer, Merlyn, was published in 2021.^[8]