Chicago film critic Roger Ebert, age 70, died Thursday after a long battle with cancer. “No good film is too long,” he was famously quoted as saying. “No bad movie is short enough.”
Probably the best known film critic, Ebert began writing as Chicago Sun-Times’ film critic on April 3, 1967, and later gained national fame as the host of movie review TV programs like “Coming Soon to a Theater Near You,” “Sneak Previews,” “At the Movies,” “Siskel & Ebert & The Movies” and “Ebert & Roeper.” He invented his trademark thumbs up and thumbs down signs to recommend or blast thousands of movies during his programs.
Ebert wrote on his blog Tuesday night he was undergoing treatment for cancer again after fracturing his hip a second time and would scale back on his daily workload.
“The ‘painful fracture’ that made it difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer. It is being treated with radiation, which has made it impossible for me to attend as many movies as I used to,” he wrote. “I’ll be able at last to do what I’ve always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review.” Ebert is survived by his wife, Chaz, a stepdaughter and two stepgrandchildren.
