Roger Ebert

At 70 years old, Roger Ebert physical status not available right now. We will update Roger Ebert's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Roger Joseph Ebert (June 18, 1942–April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, historian, screenwriter, and author.

He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 to 2013.

In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. When they co-hosted the PBS show Sneak Previews and several other locally named At the Movies shows, Ebert and Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel helped popularize nationally broadcast film analysis.

When discussing films, the two verbally sparred and traded humourous barbs.

When both gave the same film a favorable review, they invented and trademarked the word "two thumbs up."

After Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert continued co-hosting the show with various co-hosts and then with Richard Roeper in 2000. Ebert was "the country's most respected and influential film critic," according to Chicago Sun-Times' John Steinberg, and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times named him as "America's most influential film critic."

He needed surgery after losing his lower jaw, leaving him severely disfigured and unable to speak or eat properly in 2006.

His writing skills remained unimpaired, and he continued to publish often online and in print until his death on April 4, 2013.

Early life

Roger Joseph Ebert was born in Urbana, Illinois, as the only child of Annabel (née Stumm, 1911-1970), a bookkeeper, and Walter Harry Ebert (1901-1960), an electrician. He was raised Roman Catholic, attended St. Mary's elementary school, and served as an altar boy in Urbana.

His paternal grandparents were German immigrants, and his maternal ancestry was Irish and Dutch. Ebert's interest in journalism began as a student at Urbana High School, where he worked as a sports writer for The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois; however, he began his writing career as a reporter for the science-fiction fanzines of the time. He served as class president and co-editor of his high school newspaper, The Echo, in his senior year. In 1958, he won the Illinois High School Association state speech championship in "radio speaking," an event that imitates radio newscasts.

In the 1998 parody collection Mad About the Movies, Ebert wrote about his early influences in film criticism, in which he referred to his early influences in film criticism.

Ebert began taking classes at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, as an early-entrance student, completing his high school courses while also attending his first university class. Ebert continued to attend and receive his undergraduate degree in 1964 after graduating from Urbana High School in 1960. While attending The University of Illinois, Ebert served as a reporter and then as its editor during his senior year, as well as working as a reporter for Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. (He had started at the News-Gazette at the age of 15, covering Urbana High School sports.) He was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and president of the United States Student Press Association as an undergraduate. A review of La Dolce Vita, which appeared in The Daily Illini in October 1961, was one of the first movie reviews he ever wrote.

Before going to Cape Town on a Rotary fellowship for a year, Ebert spent a semester as a master's student in the Department of English. He returned from Cape Town to Illinois for two more semesters, and then, after being accepted as a PhD student at the University of Chicago, he is ready to move to Chicago. While writing on his doctorate, he wanted to support himself and so he applied to the Chicago Daily News, hoping that, as he had already sold freelance pieces to the Daily News, including an article on writer Brendan Behan's death, editor Herman Kogan would have hired him. Rather, Kogan referred Ebert to Jim Hoge, the city editor of Chicago, who hired Ebert as a reporter and feature writer at the Sun-Times in 1966. While working as a general reporter at the Sun-Times for a year, he took doctoral classes at the University of Chicago. Editor Robert Zonka left the Sun-Times in April 1967 after film critic Eleanor Keane left the Sun-Times in April 1967. Ebert left the University of Chicago to concentrate his attention on film criticism due to the workload of graduate school and being a film critic.

Personal life

Ebert married trial lawyer Charlie "Chaz" Hammelsmith (formerly Chaz Hammel-Smith) in 1992 at the age of 50. In his book Life Itself, he explained that he did not want to marry before his mother died because he was afraid of offending her. "She fills my horizon, she has my love, she saves me from the danger of living out my life alone, which is where I was headed," Ebert wrote in a July 2012 blog post titled "Roger loves Chaz." Chaz Ebert, the Vice President of the Ebert Company, has been appointed vice president of the Ebert Company and has attended the Ebertfest.

In 1979, Ebert was a recovering alcoholic who had stopped drinking alcohol for the first time. He had been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and had published some blog posts on the subject. Ebert dated Oprah Winfrey and was a longtime friend of hers. Winfrey credited him with persuading her to syndicate The Oprah Winfrey Show, which became America's highest-rated talk show, earned her acclaim. He was also associates with film historian and commentator Leonard Maltin, and he considered Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide (final update in 2014) to be the gold standard for film guide books.

Michael Moore, a Democratic party supporter, had asked leftist filmmaker Michael Moore to address the Academy Awards in a vivacious manner: "I want to see Michael Moore get up there and let'em have it with both barrels and let them loose and give them a good rabble-rousing speech." Ebert coined the Boulder Pledge during a 1996 panel at the University of Colorado Boulder's Conference on World Affairs, in which he promised never to buy anything from the result of an unsolicited email message or forward chain emails or mass emails to others. In 2012, Ebert endorsed Barack Obama for re-election as president, citing the Affordable Care Act as one of many reasons for his endorsement of Obama.

Ebert was dismissive of intelligent design, saying that people who believe in either creationism or New Age beliefs such as crystal healing or astrology are not eligible to vote. Ebert also expressed disbelief in pseudoscientific or supernatural claims in general, coining them "woo-woo," although he has stated that reincarnation is possible from a "scientific, rationalist standpoint."

I am still awake at night, asking how?

"I believe that if we do something to make others a little happier and our own a little happier, that is about the best we can do." It's a crime to make others less merry. All crime starts when we make ourselves miserable. We must continue to bring joy to the world. Were uncertain about our health, our wellbeing, or our circumstances, that is the truth. We must try. I didn't have to worry about this, and I'm glad I lived long enough to figure it out."

He fulfilled one of his long-time dreams by winning one of the weekly cartoon-caption competitions in The New Yorker after more than 100 attempts on April 25, 2011.

Ebert was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer in early 2002, which was successfully treated in February 2002. In 2003, he underwent surgery for tumors in his salivary gland, which was followed by radiation therapy. In 2006, he was diagnosed with cancer for the second time. He underwent surgery to remove tumorous tissue near his right jaw in June of this year. His carotid artery burst near the surgery center a week later, causing him to die. He was limited to bed rest and was unable to speak, eat, or drink for a while, requiring the use of a feeding tube.

For a lengthy time, the challenges kept Ebert off the air for a long time. On April 25, 2007, Ebert made his first public appearance since mid-2006 at Ebertfest. He was unable to speak, but instead spent his time with his wife. On May 18, 2007, he returned to publishing, although three of his studies were published in print. He declared that he was still struggling to talk in July 2007. Ebert used a computerized voice device to communicate, eventually using a copy of his own voice obtained from his recordings by CereProc. On The Oprah Winfrey Show in March 2010, his health problems and a new computerized voice were featured. Ebert later developed a test to determine the realism of a synthesized voice.

In January 2008, Ebert underwent further surgery to try to recover his voice and address the problems from his previous surgeries. Ebert's address had not been restored on April 1, according to his father. After fractured his hip in a fall, Ebert underwent additional surgery in April 2008. By 2011, Ebert was using a prosthetic chin to mask some of the harm caused by his numerous chin, throat, and throat surgeries.

Ebert was hospitalized in December 2012 due to a fractured hip, which was later determined to be the result of cancer.

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Career

In 1967, Ebert began working as a film critic, and he began writing for the Chicago Sun-Times. For the first time at the New York Film Festival this year, he met film critic Pauline Kael. She told him they were "the best film criticism in American newspapers today" after he sent her some of his columns. The University of Illinois's first book, Illini Century: A Hundred Years of Campus Life, was published in the university's newspaper in the same year. In 1969, his study of Night of the Dead was published in Reader's Digest. Ebert was one of the first journalists to endorse Bonnie and Clyde, calling it "a landmark in American cinema history, a work of truth, and brilliance." It is also cruel, ladening with compassion, nauseation, hysterical, hilarious, heartbreaking, and stunningly beautiful. If it does not appear that those terms should be strung together, perhaps because movies don't often reflect the full range of human life. Bonnie and Clyde were "the first masterpiece I saw on the job" five years ago. There was an exhilaration that went beyond words. I didn't know how long it would be between such incidents, but at least I learned that they were likely." Martin Scorsese's first book, "Who's That Knocking at My Door," predicted that the young director would become "an American Fellini."

In addition to film, Ebert also wrote about other Sun-Times subjects, such as music. John Prine, a singer-songwriter who at the time was working as a mailman and playing in Chicago folk clubs, wrote the first published concert review.

Ebert and Meyer also made Up!

Ebert began teaching a night class on film at the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies in 1968.

Ebert received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1975.

Although continuing to work with the Sun-Times and also headquartered in Chicago, Ebert fired Rex Reed as the New York Post chief film critic in October 1986.

His books were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad as of 2007. More than 20 books and scores of collected reviews have also appeared on Ebert.

Even as he began using television (and later the internet) to broadcast his research, Ebert continued to write for the Chicago Sun-Times until he died in 2013.

Ebert and Gene Siskel co-founded Sneak Previews, a week-review television program that was locally produced by Chicago's public broadcasting station WTTW in 1975. The series was later picked up for national syndication on PBS. The pair became well-known for their "thumbs up/thumbs down" review summaries. "Two Thumbs Up" was the trademarked word used by Siskel and Ebert.

They went from PBS to produce At the Movies With Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert, a syndicated commercial television show. Siskel & Ebert & the Movies was created by Buena Vista Television, part of the Walt Disney Company, in 1986.

Following Siskel's death in 1999, the producers retitled Roger Ebert & the Movies and recruited Martin Scorsese, A.O., as the show's rotating co-hosts. Janet Maslin and Scott Maslin.

Richard Roeper, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist, became the permanent co-host of the show At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper and later At the Movies in September 2000.

Ebert interviewed President Bill Clinton at The White House in 2000. Clinton talked about his passion for films, his favorite films of 1999, and his favorite films of all time, including Casablanca (1942), High Noon (1952) and The Ten Commandments (1956). Meryl Steffiep, Robert De Niro, and Tom Hanks were among Clinton's top actors.

Ebert became the first film critic to be on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005.

In July 2008, Ebert halted his involvement with At The Movies after the studio announced that it wanted to change the program's focus. Ebert revealed on February 18, 2009, that he and Roeper would shortly announce a new movie-review service, and reiterated this strategy after Disney announced that the program's last episode will air in August 2010.

Ebert was named an honorary life member of the Directors Guild of America on January 31, 2009. Ebert Presents: At the Movies' final television series premiered on January 21, 2011, with Ebert presenting more traditional film reviews in Christy Lemire and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky's "At the Movies" style. The program lasted one season before being cancelled due to funding shortages and Ebert's subsequent death.

Ebert's last book, which was published on March 27, 2013, was about the film The Host, which was released during his lifetime. In a review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Ebert wrote about To the Wonder, which he gave 3.5 out of four actors. It was released on April 6, 2013. Computer Chess' first unpublished review appeared on Ebert's website in July 2013. The review had been published in March, but it had not been released before the film's wide-release date. Matt Zoller Seitz, the editor of Ebert's website, revealed that there were other unpublished research that would be eventually added to the website. In August 2013, The Spectacular Now published a second review.

The late show with David Letterman sixteen times and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson fifteen times were known for their many appearances on late night talk shows, including appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. They also appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Arsenio Hall Show, Howard Stern, Howard Stern, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

On Saturday Night Live in 1982, 1983, and 1985, Ebert and Siskel appeared together as themselves. For their last two appearances, they reviewed sketches from that night's telecast and sketched sketches from the "SNL Film Festival."

In 1991, Ebert and Siskel appeared in a segment entitled "Sneak Peak Previews" on Sesame Street (a parody of Sneak Previews). The hosts, Oscar the Grouch and Telly Monster, are shown how their thumbs up/thumbs down rating system works in this segment. Oscar wonders if there could be thumbs sideways ratings, and goads the two guys into a discussion about whether or not it would be acceptable, but Siskel does not. In the show's celebrity version of "Monster in the Mirror," the two were also seen together that year. Ebert appeared on "The King and I" in 2004 as part of the Sesame Street franchise's direct-to-video special A Celebration of Me, Grover.

Ebert and Siskel appeared on an episode of the animated television series The Critic in 1995. Siskel and Ebert are split, and each wants protagonist Jay Sherman, a fellow film critic, as his new partner in the episode. The episode is a parody of the film Sleepless in Seattle. Ebert appeared in Pitch, a Canadian filmmakers' documentary film directed by Spencer Rice and Kenny Hotz, over the next year. In a 1997 episode of the television show 'Equity's Early Edition, which took place in Chicago, he appeared as himself. In the episode, Ebert consoles a young boy who is distraught after seeing a character named Bosco the Bunny die in a film.

Ebertfest, his hometown, Champaign, Illinois, was established in 1999.

Ebert appeared in the film Abby Singer in 2003. Following his battle with cancer, Ebert was named by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences as the Year's Webby Person of the Year on May 4, 2010. During Robert Osborne's "The Essentials" series on the Turner Classic Movies network, Ebert appeared on camera with him on October 22, 2010. Ebert selected Sweet Smell of Hope and The Lady Eve from her collection of Success and Absolution of Eternity.

Ebert appeared with Roeper on the Academy Awards show for many years, An Evening at the Academy Awards: The Arrivals. This was on air for more than a decade, many years before the awards ceremony, which also included red carpet interviews and fashion commentary. They appeared on the Academy Awards' an Evening at the Academy Awards: The Winners, produced and broadcast by ABC-owned KABC-TV in Los Angeles.

Ebert was one of the main protagonists in Gerald Peary's 2009 documentary film For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. He's on display talking about the mechanics of appearing with Gene Siskel on the 1970s program Coming to a Theatre Near You, which was the precursor to Sneak Previews on Chicago PBS station WTTW. He also expressed his acceptance of the rise of young people writing film reviews on the internet today.

Ebert made DVD audio commentaries for several films, including Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Dark City, Floating Weeds, Crumb, and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Ebert was also interviewed by Central Park Media for an extra feature on the DVD release of the anime film Grave of the Fireflies. In 2014, Life Itself, a bio-documentary about Ebert, was published.

Though not performing in person, an honorary effigy of Ebert co-starred in the 1998 reimagined Godzilla, starring actor Michael Lerner as New York City Mayor Ebert.

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