Roger Ebert, the legendary film critic, died today, his long-time employer, The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.
Ebert had been wrestling with cancer for years. Over his life, he was treated for salivary gland cancer, thyroid cancer and cancer of the jawbone. In 2006, Ebert lost his jaw and with it, his ability to talk, but he still kept up an unrelenting pace, reviewing more than 200 movies a year for the paper and keeping up an admired digital presence. On his blog and on twitter, he chronicled his struggle with cancer and just two days ago,
Ebert was 70.
"At this point in my life, in addition to writing about movies, I may write about what it's like to cope with health challenges and the limitations they can force upon you," he wrote. "It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital. So on bad days I may write about the vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness."
Back in 2011, . He had just written a memoir titled Life Itself. Ebert spoke through a digitize voice on his computer.
Melissa asked him about what most people will remember him by: His television show with Gene Siskel, in which the two of them would give films thumbs up and thumbs down.
"We were often angry with one another," he told Melissa. "At other times we were very warm. I think we shared a strong sense of morality about films that offended us, either by their content or their general stupidity."
Perhaps Ebert's greatest accomplishment was his 1975 Pulitzer Prize. He was the first film critic to win one.
He reviewed films for the Sun-Times for 46 years and on TV for 31. says Ebert was not only "widely popular" but "professionally respected."
They point out that the critic gig came out of nowhere. He was offered the job at the Sun-Times when "the previous critic, Eleanor Keen, retired."
"I didn't know the job was open until the day I was given it," the paper quotes Ebert as saying. "I had no idea. Bob Zonka, the features editor, called me into the conference room and said, 'We're gonna make you the movie critic.' It fell out of the sky."
BP
We've got to quit saying, 
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