Roger Ebert

Diagnoses

Personal

Vocation

Notable

American film critic, historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author, who became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1975. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. Ebert and Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel helped popularize nationally televised film reviewing when they co-hosted the PBS show Sneak Previews, followed by several variously named At the Movies programs. The two verbally sparred and traded humorous barbs while discussing films. They created and trademarked the phrase "Two Thumbs Up," used when both hosts gave the same film a positive review. After Siskel died in 1999, Ebert continued hosting the show with various co-hosts and then, starting in 2000, with Richard Roeper. At age 50, Ebert married trial attorney Charlie "Chaz" Hammelsmith (formerly Chaz Hammel-Smith) in 1992. He explained in his memoir, Life Itself, that he "would never marry before [his] mother died", as he was afraid of displeasing her. Ebert lived with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands from 2002. In 2006, this required treatments necessitating the removal of his lower jaw, which cost him the ability to speak or eat normally and left him severely disfigured. His ability to write remained unimpaired, and he continued to publish frequently both online and in print until his death in Chicago on 4 April 2013, age 70. Link to Wikipedia biography