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Vale: Roger Ebert

Film critic Roger Ebert, who co-hosted At The Movies on US television, has died aged 70.

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2013-04-05_1354US film critic Roger Ebert, who co-hosted At The Movies with Gene Siskel, has died following a battle with cancer. He was aged 70.

Ebert was one of America’s most influential film critics, with gladiatorial “thumbs up, thumbs down” assessments of films.

As the longtime and prolific critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, he wrote reviews while co-hosting the popular nationally syndicated TV show that, in the 1980s, was known as At the Movies.

The show aired under various names from 1986 – 2010, after Richard Roeper became Ebert’s regular partner in 2000 after Siskel died in 1999.

Ebert was the first movie critic to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1975, but he had the greatest impact through his TV forum, which began that same year on Chicago public television.

While his cancer diagnosis and the resulting treatments forced him to pull back from criticism in 2006, he remained active as a writer and maintained a powerful presence via his award-winning blog, Roger Ebert’s Journal.

In May 2008, he had returned to writing movie reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times but essentially said goodbye to the TV show that made him famous.

Earlier this week he had announced that he would be stepping back from writing reviews.

“Typically, I write over 200 reviews a year for the Sun-Times that are carried by Universal Press Syndicate in some 200 newspapers. Last year, I wrote the most of my career, including 306 movie reviews, a blog post or two a week, and assorted other articles. I must slow down now, which is why I’m taking what I like to call ‘a leave of presence,'” he wrote.

“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.”

Source: LA Times

7 Responses

  1. @Jennome yes he had throat cancer, and they (surgeons) removed his lower jaw, thus you saw him with his prosthetic jaw, and it looked a bit confronting 🙁 Happily he died content as an Atheist
    so you can feel OK now :o)

  3. I read his review quite often, but had no idea of his health problems, so seeing recent photos of him was quite a shock, as was his death.

    He’ll be sorely missed.

  5. It’s a real shame, I visited his website a couple times a week to see what reviews he had done.

    He also seemed like a great guy. At least you know, right until the end he was busy and constantly working. Even despite his horrible health problems. It was only a couple days ago he posted he would be stepping back from reviewing most movies.

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