Roger Ebert Dies of Cancer at 70

Photos: GettyImages

This is a sad day, indeed. Roger Ebert, famed movie-reviewer on PBS "Sneak Previews" with Gene Siskel, and of course reviewing films for the Chicago Sun Times.

via The Chicago Sun Times:

Ebert, 70, who reviewed movies for the Chicago Sun-Times for 46 years and on TV for 31 years, and who was without question the nation’s most prominent and influential film critic, died Thursday in Chicago. He had been in poor health over the past decade, battling cancers of the thyroid and salivary gland.

He lost part of his lower jaw in 2006, and with it the ability to speak or eat, a calamity that would have driven other men from the public eye. But Ebert refused to hide, instead forging what became a new chapter in his career, an extraordinary chronicle of his devastating illness that won him a new generation of admirers. “No point in denying it,” he wrote, analyzing his medical struggles with characteristic courage, candor and wit, a view that was never tinged with bitterness or self-pity.

Roger and Chaz Ebert - Two Thumbs Up

Mr. Ebert fought  his battle with cancer publicly and without shame. He taught a generation how to appreciate film (along with Mr. Siskel), and to seek out films we may not have otherwise watched.

I will always be so incredibly proud of my Contributing Editor Brittani (who is @bleakey on Twitter) for the following Tweet by Mr. Ebert:

Mr. Ebert, your contribution to film and culture as well as humor and grace deserves one giant "Thumbs Up". You will be terribly missed.

Please do make a point to read the link to the Chicago Sun Times.  It's a lovely, in-depth piece on this remarkable man who devoted 46 years to the newspaper as their premiere film critic.