Roger Ebert - Rotten Tomatoes Celebrity Profile

Biography

This page uses content from the Roger Ebert biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.

Roger Joseph Ebert (born June 18, 1942) is an Emmy Award-nominated American television personality, author, and film critic who began writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, every week since 1967. His reviews are syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the US and elsewhere. He is also the 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. He has written more than 15 books, including his annual movie yearbook. 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. In February 1995, Chicago's Erie Street was renamed Siskel & Ebert Way, near the CBS Studios. He also 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 considerably to the appreciation of film among members of the public. He also runs a special section of his website RogerEbert.com devoted to what he deems to be great films.

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

Early Life

Ebert was born in Urbana, Illinois. His interest in journalism began as a student at Urbana High School, where he was a sports writer for The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois, although he began his writing career with letters of comment to the science fiction fanzines of the era [1]. In his senior year he was co-editor of his high school newspaper, The Echo.

In 1958, Ebert won the Illinois High School Association state speech championship in Radio Speaking, an event that simulates radio newscasts.Roger Ebert in the IHSA list of state speech champions

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. One of the first movie reviews he ever wrote was a review of La Dolce Vita, published in The Daily Illini in October 1961. Ebert's review of La Dolce Vita

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.

Career as a critic

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

In 1969, his review of Night of the Living Dead was published in Reader's Digest.

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

When Siskel died in 1999, the producers retitled the show Roger Ebert & the Movies with rotating co-hosts. In September of 2000, 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, Floating Weeds, Crumb, and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (in which he also wrote the screenplay based on a story that he co-wrote with Russ Meyer).

On the day that ABC television network carries the Academy Awards show, Ebert, with partner Roeper, annually appear on the live pre-awards show, An Evening at the Academy Awards: The Arrivals prior to the awards ceremony show featuring red carpet interviews and fashion commentary. They also appear on the post awards show entitled An Evening at the Academy Awards: the Winners. Both shows are produced by ABC's Los Angeles station KABC-TV, and are simulcast on ABC's Chicago station WLS-TV and several other ABC affiliates.

Other career highlights

As a teenager, Ebert was involved in science fiction fandom,See his autobiographical essay in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, "Thought Experiments: How Propeller-Heads, BNFs, Sercon Geeks, Newbies, Recovering GAFIAtors, and Kids in the Basements Invented the World Wide Web, All Except for the Delivery System." writing articles for fanzines, including Richard A. Lupoff's Xero. In 1958, he won the Illinois high school championship in radio speaking, a speech event.

Ebert co-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 also made Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens and were involved in the ill-fated Sex Pistols movie Who Killed Bambi?

Style of Criticism

Ebert has described his critical approach to films as "relative, not absolute"; he reviews a film for what he feels will be its prospective audience, but always with at least some consideration as to its value towards film as a whole.

Ebert emphasizes the importance of the written review over his stars; he has assured that the star system is very unreliable if the review is not taken into account. There have been instances (see Basic Instinct 2) where his star review completely contradicts his overall opinion, which Ebert explains by stating "I cannot recommend the movie, but ... why the hell can't I? Just because it's God-awful? What kind of reason is that for staying away from a movie? God-awful and boring, that would be a reason."Ebert's movie review of Basic Instinct 2 (21 March 2006) In his review of The Manson Family, he gave the film three stars for achieving what it set out to do, but admitted that didn't count as a recommendation per se.

Ebert's reviews regularly clash with overall reception of movies, as evidenced with his review of Die Hard. Ebert often makes heavy use of mocking sarcasm, especially when reviewing movies he considers bad. His reviews are also often characterized by dry wit, and a marked distaste for films that feature violence in support of authority. Ebert has also been known to occasionally review movies in the forms of stories, poems, songs, scripts, or imagined conversations.

Like Pauline Kael, he has occasionally accused some films of having an unwholesome political agenda, and the word 'fascist' accompanied more than one of Ebert's reviews of the law-and-order films of the 1970s (such as Dirty Harry). He is also suspicious of films which appear to have hypocritical agenda -- i.e., a confrontational film that is passed off as art, but is merely lurid and sensational (The Night Porter; Blue Velvet).

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

Public policy

Ebert is an outspoken opponent of the Motion Picture Association of America rating system (he often uses the negative epithet "flywheels" to describe their arbitrary nature), and has repeatedly criticized their decisions regarding which movies are "suitable for children"—for example, Whale RiderEbert's "Movie Answer Man column", November 16, 2003 and School of RockEbert, Roger (October 3, 2003) School of Rock, rogerebert.com, which he thought both should be PG instead of PG-13. In his review of The Exorcist, Ebert expressed shock that the film received a rating of "R" from the MPAA instead of an "X" (he said it was "stupefying" that it managed to receive the lighter rating). 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.Ebert, Roger, "They got it right," Chicago Sun Times (29 Jan. 2004) He is 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, (which the Maxivision 48 projector can also show with the flick of a switch).

Personal life

Since the 1970s he has worked for the University of Chicago as a guest lecturer, teaching a night class on film. His fall 2005 class was on the works of the German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

He married trial attorney Chaz Hammelsmith on July 18, 1993 and has a step-daughter and two step-grandchildren. He has been friends with, and at one time dated, Oprah Winfrey, who credits him with encouraging her to go into syndication. How I gave Oprah her start, Ebert, Roger; Chicago Sun-Times He is also good friends with film historian and critic Leonard Maltin, and considers the book Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide to be the standard of film guide books.

A supporter of the Democratic Party (United States) Ebert's political donations , Ebert publicly urged left-wing activist and film-maker Michael Moore to give a politically-charged acceptance speech at the Academy Awards: "I'd like to see Michael Moore get up there and let 'em have it with both barrels and really let loose and give them a real rabble-rousing speech."Interview with Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, August 2003

A lifelong Catholic, Ebert has also been critical of films he believes are grossly ignorant or insulting of Catholicism (such as StigmataEbert's review of Stigmata or Priest), and gave a very favorable review of The Passion of the ChristEbert's review of The Passion of the Christ as well as Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (which many Catholics denounced). It should be noted that Ebert also gave high praise to Kevin Smith's religious satire Dogma. Ebert's review of Dogma

Battle with cancer

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 which altered his voice slightly. He continued to review movies, not missing a single opening while undergoing treatment.

He underwent surgery Friday, June 16, 2006, just two days before his 64th birthday, to remove cancer near his right jaw, including a section of jaw bone.August 17th E-mail from Roger, posted on his website

On July 1, Ebert was hospitalized in serious condition after an artery burst near the surgery site; he later discovered that the burst was likely a side-effect of his treatment, which involved neutron beam radiation. He has told his fans that it is a search for ways to prevent future arterial bursts that has kept him bed-ridden.

Ebert filmed enough TV programs with his co-host, Richard Roeper, to keep him on the air for several weeks. However, his extended convalescence has necessitated a series of "guest critics" to co-host with Roeper, including Jay Leno (a good friend to both Ebert and Roeper), Kevin Smith, John Ridley, Toni Senecal, Michael Phillips, Aisha Tyler, Fred Willard, and A.O. Scott.

An update from Ebert on October 11 confirmed his bleeding problems have been resolved. He was receiving rehabilitation care at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago to regain muscle strength lost during his convalescence. Ebert stated he planned to fully resume work early in 2007, and to hold his annual Overlooked Film Festival as scheduled.October 11th update from Roger, posted on his website He returned to the Chicago Sun-Times with his October 13 review of The Queen,Roger Ebert's review of The Queen but has not resumed his television work.

Books written by Ebert

Each year, Ebert publishes Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook, a book of all the movie reviews from a particular year. He has also authored the following books:

Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert (ISBN-10 0-226-18200-2) — a collection of essays from his forty years as a film critic, featuring interviews, profiles, essays, his initial reviews upon a film's release, as well as critical exchanges between the film critics Richard Corliss and Andrew Sarris
Ebert's "Bigger" Little Movie Glossary (ISBN 0-8362-8289-2) — a book of movie clichés
The Great Movies (ISBN 0-7679-1038-9) and The Great Movies II (ISBN 0-7679-1950-5) — two books of essays about great films
I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie (ISBN 0-7407-0672-1) — a collection of reviews of films that received two and a half stars or less.
Roger Ebert's Book of Film (ISBN 0-393-04000-3) — a Norton Anthology of a century of writing about the movies
Questions For The Movie Answer Man (ISBN 0-8362-2894-4) — his responses to questions sent from his readers
Behind the Phantom's Mask (ISBN 0-8362-8021-0) — 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 0-8362-7929-8) — a tour of Ebert's favorite foreign city

References

External links

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