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| FILE - This undated file photo originally released by Disney-ABC Domestic Television, shows movie critics Roger Ebert, right, and Gene Siskel. The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that its film critic Roger Ebert died on Thursday, April 4, 2013. He was 70. Ebert and Siskel, who died in 1999, trademarked the "two thumbs up" phrase. |
CHICAGO (AP) -- Roger Ebert had the most-watched thumb in Hollywood.
With
a twist of his wrist, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic rendered
decisions that influenced a nation of moviegoers and could sometimes
make or break a film.
The heavy-set writer in
the horn-rimmed glasses teamed up on television with Gene Siskel to
create a format for criticism that proved enormously appealing in its
simplicity: uncomplicated reviews that were both intelligent and
accessible and didn't talk down to ordinary movie fans.
Ebert,
film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, died Thursday at the
Rehabilitation Institute of
Chicago, two days after announcing on his
blog that he was undergoing radiation treatment for a recurrence of
cancer. He was 70.
"So on this day of
reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me.
I'll see you at the movies." Ebert wrote Tuesday on his blog.
Despite his wide influence, Ebert considered himself "beneath everything else a fan."
"I
have seen untold numbers of movies and forgotten most of them, I hope,
but I remember those worth remembering, and they are all on the same
shelf in my mind," Ebert wrote in his 2011 memoir titled "Life Itself."
After
cancer surgeries in 2006, Ebert lost portions of his jaw and the
ability to eat, drink and speak. But he went back to writing full time
and eventually even returned to television. In addition to his work for
the Sun-Times, he became a prolific user of social media, connecting
with hundreds of thousands of fans on Facebook and Twitter.
Ebert's
thumb - pointing up or down - was his trademark. It was the main logo
of the long-running TV shows Ebert co-hosted, first with Siskel of the
rival Chicago Tribune and - after Siskel's death in 1999 - with
Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper. A "two thumbs-up" accolade was sure
to find its way into the advertising for the movie in question.
The
nation's best-known movie reviewer "wrote with passion through a real
knowledge of film and film
history, and in doing so, helped many movies
find their audiences," director Steven Spielberg said. His death is
"virtually the end of an era, and now the balcony is closed forever."
In
early 2011, Ebert launched a new show, "Ebert Presents At the Movies."
The show had new hosts and featured Ebert in his own segment, "Roger's
Office." He used a chin prosthesis and enlisted voice-over guests or his
computer to read his reviews.
Fans admired his courage, but Ebert told The Associated Press that bravery had "little to do with it."
"You
play the cards you're dealt," Ebert wrote in an email in January 2011.
"What's your choice? I have no pain. I enjoy life, and why should I
complain?"
Always modest, Ebert had Midwestern
charm but stuck strongly to his belief that critics honestly tell
audiences "how better to invest two hours of their lives."
On
the air, Ebert and Siskel bickered like an old married couple and
openly needled each other. To viewers who had trouble telling them
apart, Ebert was known as the fat one with glasses, Siskel as the thin,
bald one.
Ebert favored blue sweater vests and
khakis. After his surgeries, he switched to black turtlenecks and
white, film director-style scarves.
Joining
the Sun-Times part-time in 1966, he pursued graduate study at the
University of Chicago and got the
reviewing job the following year. His
reviews were eventually syndicated to several hundred other newspapers,
collected in books and repeated on innumerable websites, which would
have made him one of the most influential film critics in the nation
even without his television fame.
His 1975
Pulitzer for distinguished criticism was the first, and one of only
three, given to a film reviewer since the category was created in 1970.
In 2005, he received another honor when he became the first critic to
have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Ebert's
breezy and quotable style, as well as his deep understanding of film
technique and the business side of the industry, made him an almost
instant success.
He soon began doing
interviews and profiles of notable actors and directors in addition to
his film reviews - celebrating such legends as Alfred Hitchcock, John
Wayne and Robert Mitchum. Ebert also offered words of encouragement for
then-newcomer Martin Scorsese, who was one of three filmmakers working
on a bio-documentary about Ebert at the time of his death.
In
1969, Ebert took a leave of absence from the Sun-Times to write the
screenplay for "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." The movie got an "X"
rating and became somewhat of a cult film.
Ebert's
television career began the year he won the Pulitzer, first on WTTW-TV,
the Chicago PBS station, then nationwide on PBS and later on several
commercial syndication services.
And while
Siskel and Ebert may have sparred on air, they were close off camera.
Siskel's daughters were flower girls when Ebert married his wife, Chaz,
in 1992.
"He's in my mind almost every day," Ebert wrote in his autobiography. "He became less like a friend than like a brother."
Ebert
found a professional and personal partner in Chaz, who acted as his
co-producer. During television interviews, he often used his computer
voice to tell her "I love you."
She returned
the sentiment, telling Ebert during the final dress rehearsal for "Ebert
Presents at the Movies"
that he had an "indomitable spirit."
"And
you know that's right," Chaz Ebert told her husband. "Because people
would have understood totally if you decided never to do any of this
again."
Ebert was also an author, writing more
than 20 books that included two volumes of essays on classic movies and
the popular "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie," a collection of some of
his most scathing reviews.
The son of a union
electrician who worked at the University of Illinois' Urbana-Champaign
campus, Ebert
was born in Urbana on June 18, 1942. The love of
journalism, as well as of movies, came early. Ebert covered high school
sports for a local paper at age 15 while also writing and editing his
own science fiction fan magazine.
He attended
the university and was editor of the student newspaper. After graduating
in 1964, he spent a year on scholarship at the University of Cape Town
in South Africa and then began work toward a doctorate in English at the
University of Chicago.
Ebert's hometown
embraced the film critic, hosting the annual Ebertfest film festival and
placing a plaque at his childhood home.
In
the years after he lost his physical voice, Ebert was embraced online.
He kept up a Facebook page, a
Twitter account with more than 800,000
followers and a blog, Roger Ebert's Journal.
He
posted links to stories he found interesting, wrote long pieces on
varied topics, not just film criticism, and wittily interacted with
readers in the comments sections. He liked to post old black-and-white
photos of
Hollywood stars and ask readers to guess who they were.
"My
blog became my voice, my outlet, my `social media' in a way I couldn't
have dreamed of," Ebert wrote
in his memoir. "Most people choose to
write a blog. I needed to."
Writing in 2010,
he said he did not fear death because he didn't believe there was
anything "on the other side of death to fear."
"I
was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the
same state," he wrote. "I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence,
love, wonder and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting."
