Marjorie Gunner, a veteran theater critic who headed the Outer Critics Circle for a quarter of a century, died on Saturday at the age of 91. A writer for the Italian Tribune and the New Voice of New York newspaper who then devoted her later professional life to serving as president of the OCC (a critics organization comprising out-of-town journalists who review New York theater), Gunner stepped down in 2005 but stayed on the executive board through 2009.

A Cornell attendee and NYU drama graduate, Gunner married Morris Gunner, who died in 1966. Biographical information submitted by Gunner’s daughter, Holly, to the New York Times, notes that her mother was “one of seven women admitted to the Friars Club” in the first year that women were allowed in. Holly Gunner, who married her partner, Anne Chalmers, in 2005, has been an ACLU member and visible advocate for gay marriage since being denied the rights of a spouse when her previous partner died.

The year after she left the presidency of the OCC, Marjorie Gunner received a special Outer Critics Circle Award for her 25 years of service. Funeral services are being held tomorrow, with family and friends convening, appropriately enough, at Sardi's afterwards. The family also asks that in lieu of flowers, contributions in her memory be made to off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons.