Roger Ebert

He printed his first newspaper in a basement in Urbana. Roger Ebert was the only child of an electrician and a bookkeeper, an altar boy at St. Mary's who ran a science-fiction fanzine called Stymie, covered high school sports for the News-Gazette at 15, and won the Illinois state championship in radio speaking in 1958. At the University of Illinois he edited the Daily Illini and reviewed La Dolce Vita for it in October 1961. He took a journalism degree in 1964, spent a year in Cape Town on a Rotary fellowship, and moved to Chicago as a doctoral student who needed a job. The Sun-Times hired him as a general reporter in 1966. In April 1967 its movie critic left, and an editor handed the beat to the 24-year-old.

He kept the beat for 46 years, and in 1975 became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer. Pauline Kael wrote to persuade a literary readership. Ebert argued in a daily paper, in language any reader could turn against him. With Gene Siskel of the rival Tribune he trademarked Two Thumbs Up, which carried criticism onto national television and compressed it into a verdict. They sniped at each other on air and meant it. When Siskel died in 1999, Ebert wrote that no one else could understand how meaningless was the hate, how deep was the love.

Surgeons removed papillary thyroid cancer in February 2002 and operated on a salivary gland the next year. In 2006 the cancer returned, and that June they took out the right side of his lower jaw. Complications followed. He never spoke again, and he never ate or drank by mouth again. Before returning to his festival in April 2007 he posted a photograph of his altered face and wrote, I ain't a pretty boy no more. Then he wrote more than he ever had: a blog, a memoir, hundreds of reviews, essay after essay for the Great Movies series. He went on Oprah in 2010 with a computerized voice, and gave a TED talk about it in 2011. He did not hide the face, and he did not ask anyone to be brave about it.

He wrote about dying with the plainness he had spent on movies. He refused the labels atheist and agnostic, said he was more content with the question than with an answer, and quoted van Gogh on death as a train to the stars. Life Itself appeared in 2011. On April 2, 2013, he posted what he called a leave of presence, and died two days later at 70. His widow Chaz kept RogerEbert.com running with the critics he had chosen. He also changed his mind in public. Having ruled in 2005 that video games could not be art, he conceded in 2010 that he had barely played any, and that a game might someday be great.

Roger Ebert's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Beyond the Valley of the Dolls film
  He co-wrote the screenplay for Russ Meyer. Panned on release, a cult film since, and a joke he told on himself for the rest of his life 1970
• Sneak Previews television
  Begun with Gene Siskel at WTTW in Chicago and picked up nationally by PBS 1975
• Siskel & Ebert & the Movies television
  The syndicated show where the trademarked Two Thumbs Up became a marketing line on posters 1986
• Roger Ebert's Book of Film book
  An anthology of a century of writing about movies, from Tolstoy to Tarantino 1996
• The Great Movies book
  The first hundred essays of a series begun in 1996. Two more volumes followed, and a fourth after his death 2002
• Life Itself: A Memoir book
  Childhood, alcoholism, cancer, marriage, and what he had decided about dying. Filmed by Steve James in 2014 2011

• June 18, 1942 aged 0 Born in Urbana, Illinois Only child of Walter Ebert, an electrician, and Annabel Stumm, a bookkeeper.
• October 1961 aged 19 Reviews La Dolce Vita for the Daily Illini One of the first film reviews he published. He was 19 and would edit the paper as a senior.
• April 1967 aged 24 The Chicago Sun-Times makes him its film critic at 24 Hired as a general reporter in 1966, he got the beat when Eleanor Keane left. He held it for 46 years.
• 1970 aged ~28 Co-writes Beyond the Valley of the Dolls for Russ Meyer A film critic wrote the screenplay for a Russ Meyer picture, and never pretended otherwise.
• 1975 aged ~33 Wins the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and starts a television show with Gene Siskel The first film critic ever awarded a Pulitzer. He turned down the New York Times and the Washington Post to stay in Chicago.
• July 18, 1992 aged 50 Marries the trial attorney Chaz Hammel-Smith He was 50. He wrote in Life Itself that he had not wanted to marry while his mother was alive.
• February 1999 aged 56 Gene Siskel dies of a brain tumor at 53 Siskel had gone back on the air after surgery the previous May and told almost no one how ill he was.
• June 2006 aged 63 Surgery removes part of his lower jaw and, with it, his voice He never spoke, ate or drank normally again. He turned to blogging in 2008 and wrote at a volume he had never reached before.
• April 4, 2013 aged 70 Dies in a Chicago hospital at 70 Two days earlier he had posted a note called A Leave of Presence. He was about to go home for hospice care.

• Pauline Kael 1919–2001
  The New Yorker's film critic from 1968 to 1991, who turned reviewing into a first-person argument and picked the fights that defined the field. influenced by
• Martin Scorsese b. 1942
  Director and preservation advocate whose films and institutions have shaped both American cinema and understanding of its history. wrote his first review
• Spike Lee b. 1957
  Four decades of American films about race that refuse to end in reconciliation. championed
• Oprah Winfrey b. 1954
  Media executive and talk show host who built a multimedia empire and became one of the most influential women in the world. appeared on her show
• Steven Spielberg b. 1946
  Director and producer whose blockbusters and dramas have defined American cinema for five decades. eulogized by