Today's Birthdays

one click shows all of today's celebrity birthdays

Browse All Birthdays

43,625    Actors
27,931    Actresses
4,867    Composers
7,058    Directors
842    Footballers
221    Racing drivers
925    Singers
9,111    Writers

Get FamousLikeMe on your website
One line of code gets FamousLikeMe on your website. Find out more.

Subscribe to Daily updates


Add to Google

privacy policy



Famous Like Me > Writer > E > Roger Ebert

Profile of Roger Ebert on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Roger Ebert  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 18th June 1942
   
Place of Birth: Urbana, Illinois, USA
   
Profession: Writer
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Roger Joseph Ebert (born June 18, 1942, Urbana, Illinois) is a film critic who writes for the Chicago Sun-Times; his reviews are syndicated to over 200 newspapers in the U.S. and abroad. He is also a long-time co-host of a syndicated television program featuring his film criticism, first for 23 years with Gene Siskel and since Siskel's death, with Richard Roeper on Ebert & Roeper.

In 1975 he became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Ebert has honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the American Film Institute, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in June 2005, the first professional film critic to receive this honor.

Through his newspaper reviews, books, television shows, and lectures, he has contributed perhaps more than anyone to the appreciation of film among the general American public. He also runs a special section of his website devoted to what he deems to be Great Films which informed moviegoers should familiarize themselves with if they become interested in important films since the dawn of the movie industry.

Since 1999 Ebert has hosted the annual Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois.

Career as a critic

Ebert began his film critic career in 1967, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times.

In 1976 he and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune began co-hosting a weekly movie review television show, Sneak Previews, produced by a Chicago public broadcasting station. The show became national when it was picked up by PBS in 1978. In 1982, the critics moved to a syndicated commercial television show named At the Movies, and later, Siskel & Ebert, where they were known for their "thumbs up / thumbs down" review summaries.

When Gene Siskel died in 1999, Ebert and his show's producers auditioned several co-hosts. In September, fellow Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper became the permanent co-host and the show was renamed Ebert & Roeper.

Ebert has also done DVD audio-commentaries for several films including Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Dark City and Floating Weeds.

Other career highlights

As a teenager, Ebert was involved in science fiction fandom, writing articles for fanzines, including Richard Lupoff's Xero.

Ebert wrote the screenplay for the 1970 cult film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, directed by Russ Meyer and likes to joke about being responsible for the poorly received film. Ebert and Meyer were similarly involved with the ill-fated Sex Pistols movie Who Killed Bambi?

Style of criticism

Roger Ebert, Peter O'Toole, Jason Patric at 2004 Savannah Film Festival

Ebert has written many essays and articles exploring in-depth the concept of film criticism, treating it as a serious subject.

In his own words:

"The star rating system is relative, not absolute. When you ask a friend if Hellboy is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to Mystic River, you're asking if it's any good compared to The Punisher. And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if Superman is four, then Hellboy is three and The Punisher is two. In the same way, if American Beauty gets four stars, then [The United States of] Leland clocks in at about two."

Ebert is an outspoken opponent of the Motion Picture Association of America rating system, and has repeatedly criticized their decisions regarding which movies are "suitable for children", for example: Whale Rider which he thought should be PG instead of PG-13. . He also frequently laments 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 moviegoers.

Personal life

Ebert received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was editor of The Daily Illini and member of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. Ebert's interest in journalism began in his teens. As a high school student, he was a sports writer for The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois, and in his senior year he was co-editor of his high school newspaper, The Echo.

Ebert did graduate study in English at the University of Cape Town under a Rotary International Fellowship. He was a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Chicago when the film critic's position was offered to him at the Sun-Times. For the last three decades he has worked for the University of Chicago as a guest lecturer, teaching a night class on film. His fall 2005 class is on the works of the German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

He married trial attorney Chaz Hammelsmith (sic), an African-American woman, on July 18, 1993 and has a step-daughter and two step-grandchildren.

In 2002, Ebert suffered a bout with papillary thyroid cancer. He underwent surgery in February 2002 which successfully removed the cancer. He later underwent surgery in 2003 for cancer in his salivary gland. In December 2003, he underwent a four week course of radiation treatment as a followup to the surgery on his salivary gland. He continued to review movies, not missing a single opening while undergoing treatment.

Books written by Ebert

Each year, Ebert publishes a book of all the movie reviews from that year. He has also authored the following books:

  • Ebert's "Bigger" Little Movie Glossary (ISBN 0836282892) — a book of movie clichés.
  • The Great Movies (ISBN 0767910389) and The Great Movies II (ISBN 0767919505) — two books of essays about the great films.
  • I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie (ISBN 0740706721) — a collection of reviews of films he hated.
  • Roger Ebert's Book of Film (ISBN 0393040003) — a Norton Anthology of a century of writing about the movies.
  • Questions For The Movie Answer Man (ISBN 0836228944) — his responses to questions sent from his readers.
  • Behind the Phantom's Mask (ISBN 0836280210) — his first attempt at fiction.
  • An Illini Century (ASIN B0006OW26K) — the history of the first 100 years of the University of Illinois.
  • The Perfect London Walk (ISBN 0836279298) — a tour of Ebert's favorite foreign city.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Roger Ebert