For six decades, Roger Ebert gave his honest opinions on the latest films. (Photo property of ABC News)
By: Jacob Elyachar
The legendary and celebrated film critic Roger Ebert has lost his battle with cancer.
Mr. Ebert was born in Urbana, Illinois on June 18, 1942 to Annabel and Walter H. Ebert. He slowly began to fall in love with journalism, when he attended Urbana High School during the late 1950s and wrote sports articles for The News-Gazette.
But his real passion for journalism bloomed while attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he wrote for the student newspaper The Daily Illini. After he received his bachelor’s degree, Ebert began his master studies in the English department before he studied abroad at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
After he returned from Africa and finished his master’s studies, Mr. Ebert was accepted as a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago. While he was working on his academic work, Mr. Ebert applied for a potion at the Chicago Daily News. While he did not get that position, he was suggested to try to apply for a position at the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Chicago Sun-Times hired Mr. Ebert in 1967 and he began to start critiquing films.
As his work became more polished, Mr. Ebert’s writing began to diversify as he co-wrote several screenplays including Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, Up! and the Sex Pistols’ Who Killed Bambi?. While he wrote screenplays and authored 15 books, Mr. Ebert always stuck to his signature critiques.
In the mid-1970s, he teamed up with rival critic Gene Siskel and they created one of the most dysfunctional and beloved duos in entertainment: Siskel and Ebert.
The duo reviewed multiple movies from Star Wars to the 1989 Batman film on their hit television series: At the Movies. If both of them liked the film, it received its’ highest honor: two thumbs up, but if they did not like the film, they gave it a huge thumbs down.
The duo continued to work together for 13 years until Siskel passed away in 1999 from complications from a brain tumor surgery. Ebert and the show spent a year with guest reviewers until Richard Roeper permanently joined in 2000, where they spent eight years reviewing films that included X-Men, Austin Powers in Goldmember and the Lord of the Rings.
Unfortunately, as he got older, Mr. Ebert faced multiple health issues. Throughout the 2000s and early part of the 2010s, the film critic battled multiple forms of cancer and two fractured hips.
Two days before his death, he announced on his blog that he would take a “leave of presence” from his duties because of the cancer recurrence.
Jake’s-take.com offers its condolences, thoughts and prayers to Mr. Ebert’s widow, Chaz, his family and colleagues. Sleep peacefully, Mr. Ebert.
