115 Facts About Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author.

Roger Ebert was the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013.

Roger Ebert endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, championing filmmakers like Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and Spike Lee, as well as Martin Scorsese, whose first published review he wrote.

In 1975, Roger Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

Early in his career, Roger Ebert co-wrote the Russ Meyer film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

In 1996, Roger Ebert began publishing essays on great films of the past; the first hundred were published as The Great Movies.

Roger Ebert published two more volumes, and a fourth was published posthumously.

In 2002, Roger Ebert was diagnosed with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands.

Roger Ebert required treatment that included removing a section of his lower jaw in 2006, leaving him severely disfigured and unable to speak or eat normally.

Roger Joseph Ebert was born on June 18,1942, in Urbana, Illinois, the only child of Annabel, a bookkeeper, and Walter Harry Ebert, an electrician.

Roger Ebert was raised Roman Catholic, attending St Mary's elementary school and serving as an altar boy in Urbana.

Roger Ebert wrote letters of comment to the science-fiction fanzines of the era and founded his own, Stymie.

Roger Ebert attended Urbana High School, where in his senior year he was class president and co-editor of his high school newspaper, The Echo.

Roger Ebert began taking classes at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as an early-entrance student, completing his high school courses while taking his first university class.

At The Daily Illini Roger Ebert befriended William Nack, who as a sportswriter would cover Secretariat.

Roger Ebert returned from Cape Town to his graduate studies at Illinois for two more semesters and then, after being accepted as a PhD student at the University of Chicago, he prepared to move to Chicago.

Roger Ebert needed a job to support himself while he worked on his doctorate and so applied to the Chicago Daily News, hoping that, as he had already sold freelance pieces to the Daily News, including an article on the death of writer Brendan Behan, he would be hired by editor Herman Kogan.

Roger Ebert attended doctoral classes at the University of Chicago while working as a general reporter for a year.

The load of graduate school and being a film critic proved too much, so Roger Ebert left the University of Chicago to focus his energies on film criticism.

Roger Ebert told his editor he wasn't sure how to review it when he didn't feel he could explain it.

Roger Ebert's editor told him he didn't have to explain it, just describe it.

Roger Ebert co-wrote the screenplay for Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and sometimes joked about being responsible for it.

Siskel and Roger Ebert were sometimes accused of trivializing film criticism.

In 1999, Roger Ebert founded The Overlooked Film Festival, in his hometown, Champaign, Illinois.

Roger Ebert returned to the show, although viewers noticed a change in his physical appearance.

Roger Ebert liked to refer to his job as 'the national dream beat,' and say that in reviewing movies he was covering what people hoped for, dreamed about, and feared.

In 2000, Roger Ebert interviewed President Bill Clinton about movies at The White House.

In 2002, Roger Ebert was diagnosed with cancer of the salivary glands.

Roger Ebert ended his association with At The Movies in July 2008, after Disney indicated it wished to take the program in a new direction.

On February 18,2009, Roger Ebert reported that he and Roeper would soon announce a new movie-review program, and reiterated this plan after Disney announced that the program's last episode would air in August 2010.

On March 7,2013, Roger Ebert published his last Great Movies essay, for The Ballad of Narayama.

The last review Roger Ebert published during his lifetime was for The Host, on March 27,2013.

The last review Roger Ebert filed, published posthumously on April 6,2013, was for To the Wonder.

Roger Ebert awarded four stars to films of the highest quality, and generally a half star to those of the lowest, unless he considered the film to be "artistically inept and morally repugnant", in which case it received no stars, as with Death Wish II.

Roger Ebert explained that his star ratings had little meaning outside the context of the review:.

Roger Ebert argued for the aesthetic values of black-and-white photography and against colorization, writing:.

Roger Ebert championed animation, particularly the films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.

Roger Ebert said that his favorite film was Citizen Kane, joking, "That's the official answer," although he preferred to emphasize it as "the most important" film.

Roger Ebert named Buster Keaton, Yasujiro Ozu, Robert Altman, Werner Herzog and Martin Scorsese as his favorite directors.

Roger Ebert expressed his distaste for "top-10" lists, and all movie lists in general, but did make an annual list of the year's best films, joking that film critics are "required by unwritten law" to do so.

Roger Ebert made annual "ten best lists" from 1967 to 2012.

Roger Ebert made similar reevaluations of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Ran.

Roger Ebert compiled "best of the decade" movie lists in the 2000s for the 1970s to the 2000s, thereby helping provide an overview of his critical preferences.

Roger Ebert was often critical of the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system.

Roger Ebert advocated replacing the NC-17 rating with separate ratings for pornographic and nonpornographic adult films.

Roger Ebert frequently lamented that cinemas outside major cities are "booked by computer from Hollywood with no regard for local tastes," making high-quality independent and foreign films virtually unavailable to most American moviegoers.

Roger Ebert did not believe in grading children's movies on a curve, as he thought children were smarter than given credit for and deserved quality entertainment.

Roger Ebert gave favorable reviews of controversial films relating to Jesus Christ or Catholicism, including The Last Temptation of Christ, The Passion of the Christ, and Kevin Smith's religious satire Dogma.

Metacritic later noted that Roger Ebert tended to give more lenient ratings than most critics.

Roger Ebert gave only two out of four stars to the widely acclaimed Brazil, calling it "very hard to follow" and is the only critic on RottenTomatoes to not like it.

Roger Ebert gave a one-star review to the critically acclaimed Abbas Kiarostami film Taste of Cherry, which won the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.

Roger Ebert later added the film to a list of his most-hated movies of all time.

In 1970, Roger Ebert wrote the first published concert review of singer-songwriter John Prine, who at the time was working as a mailman and performing at Chicago folk clubs.

Roger Ebert relished it, savored it, inhaled it, and after memorizing it rolled it on his tongue and spoke it aloud.

Roger Ebert recited to me from Lolita, and from Speak, Memory and Pnin.

Roger Ebert loved audiobooks, particularly praising Sean Barrett's reading of Perfume.

Roger Ebert was a fan of Herge's The Adventures of Tintin, which he read in French.

Roger Ebert attended the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado Boulder for many years.

When Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny premiered at Cannes, Roger Ebert called it the worst film in the history of the festival.

Roger Ebert was a strong advocate for Maxivision 48, in which the movie projector runs at 48 frames per second, as compared to the usual 24 frames per second.

Roger Ebert was opposed to the practice whereby theaters lower the intensity of their projector bulbs in order to extend the life of the bulb, arguing that this has little effect other than to make the film harder to see.

Roger Ebert was skeptical of the resurgence of 3D effects in film, which he found unrealistic and distracting.

Roger Ebert maintained his position in 2010, but conceded that he should not have expressed this skepticism without being more familiar with the actual experience of playing them.

Roger Ebert provided DVD audio commentaries for Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Dark City.

Roger Ebert was interviewed by Central Park Media for an extra feature on the DVD release of Grave of the Fireflies.

In 1982,1983 and 1985, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert appeared as themselves on Saturday Night Live.

In 1991, Siskel and Roger Ebert appeared in the Sesame Street segment "Sneak Peek Previews".

In 1995, Siskel and Roger Ebert guest-starred on an episode of the animated sitcom The Critic.

In 1997, Roger Ebert appeared in Pitch, a documentary by Spencer Rice and Kenny Hotz and the Chicago-set television series Early Edition, where consoles a young boy who is depressed after he sees the character Bosco the Bunny die in a movie.

In 2004, Roger Ebert appeared in Sesame Street's direct-to-video special A Celebration of Me, Grover, delivering a review of the Monsterpiece Theater segment "The King and I".

Roger Ebert was one of the principal critics featured in Gerald Peary's 2009 documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism.

Roger Ebert discusses the dynamics of appearing with Gene Siskel on the 1970s show Coming to a Theatre Near You, the predecessor of Sneak Previews on Chicago PBS station WTTW, and expresses approval of the proliferation of young people writing film reviews today on the internet.

On October 22,2010, Roger Ebert appeared with Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies during their "The Essentials" series.

Roger Ebert selected Sweet Smell of Success and The Lady Eve.

At age 50, Roger Ebert married trial attorney Charlie "Chaz" Hammel-Smith in 1992.

Roger Ebert explained in his memoir, Life Itself, that he did not want to marry before his mother died, as he was afraid of displeasing her.

Roger Ebert has been with me in sickness and in health, certainly far more sickness than we could have anticipated.

Roger Ebert continues to make my life possible, and her presence fills me with love and a deep security.

Roger Ebert was a recovering alcoholic, having quit drinking in 1979.

Roger Ebert was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and had written some blog entries on the subject.

Roger Ebert was a longtime friend of Oprah Winfrey, and Winfrey credited him with persuading her to syndicate The Oprah Winfrey Show, which became the highest-rated talk show in American television history.

In February 2002, Roger Ebert was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer which was successfully removed.

Roger Ebert was confined to bed rest and was unable to speak, eat, or drink for a time, necessitating the use of a feeding tube.

Roger Ebert was unable to speak, instead communicating through his wife.

Roger Ebert returned to reviewing on May 18,2007, when three of his reviews were published in print.

Roger Ebert adopted a computerized voice system to communicate, eventually using a copy of his own voice created from his recordings by CereProc.

In 2011, Roger Ebert gave a TED talk assisted by his wife, Chaz, and friends Dean Ornish and John Hunter, called "Remaking my voice" in which, he proposed a test to determine the verisimilitude of a synthesized voice.

Roger Ebert underwent further surgery in January 2008 to try to restore his voice and address the complications from his previous surgeries.

Roger Ebert underwent further surgery in April 2008 after fracturing his hip in a fall.

In December 2012, Roger Ebert was hospitalized due to the fractured hip, which was determined to be the result of cancer.

Roger Ebert opposed the war on drugs and capital punishment.

Roger Ebert famously stood with the Guild in 2004, when he wrote to then publisher John Cruickshank that 'it would be with a heavy heart that I would go on strike against my beloved Sun-Times, but strike I will if a strike is called.

Roger Ebert was critical of intelligent design, and stated that people who believe in either creationism or New Age beliefs such as crystal healing or astrology should not be president.

Roger Ebert described himself as an agnostic on at least one occasion, but at other times explicitly rejected that designation; biographer Matt Singer wrote that Roger Ebert opposed any categorization of his beliefs.

Roger Ebert wrote with passion through a real knowledge of film and film history, and in doing so, helped many movies find their audiences.

Roger Ebert's was a theatrical personality: a raconteur, a spinner of dinner-table stories, a man who was not shy about his accomplishments.

Roger Ebert has immense power, and he's used it for good, as an apostle of cinema.

That's what a great teacher does, and what Roger Ebert's done as a writer, public personality and friend to film for all these years.

Hundreds of people attended the funeral Mass held at Chicago's Holy Name Cathedral on April 8,2013, where Roger Ebert was celebrated as a film critic, newspaperman, advocate for social justice, and husband.

Roger Ebert had been an avid supporter of the festival since its inception in the 1970s.

At the 86th Academy Awards ceremony, Roger Ebert was included in the in memoriam montage, a rare honor for a film critic.

Director Steve James, whose films had been widely advocated by Roger Ebert, started making the documentary while Roger Ebert was still alive.

I've always tried to be a good soldier of cinema myself, so of course since he's gone, I will plow on, as I have plowed on all my life, but I will do what I have to do as if Roger Ebert was looking over my shoulder.

Roger Ebert was inducted as a laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois.

In 2016, Roger Ebert was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.

The site, operated by Roger Ebert Digital, continues to publish new material written by a group of critics who were selected by Roger Ebert before his death.

Roger Ebert received many awards during his long and distinguished career as a film critic and television host.

Roger Ebert was the first film critic to ever win a Pulitzer Prize, receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1975 while working for the Chicago Sun-Times, "for his film criticism during 1974".

In 2003, Roger Ebert was honored by the American Society of Cinematographers, winning a Special Achievement Award.

In 2005, Roger Ebert became the first film critic to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for his work on television.

In 2009, Roger Ebert received the Directors Guild of America Award's for Honorary Life Member Award.

In 2010, Roger Ebert received the Webby Award for Person of the Year.

In 2007, Roger Ebert was honored by the Gotham Awards receiving a tribute and award for his lifetime contributions to independent film.

On January 31,2009, Roger Ebert was made an honorary life member of the Directors Guild of America.

On May 4,2010, Roger Ebert was announced by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences as the Webby Person of the Year, having found a voice on the Internet following his battle with cancer.