Roger Ebert
In addition to his column, Ebert co-hosts the film review show "Ebert & Roeper" with Richard Roeper, which is broadcast weekly by more than 200 television stations. For health reasons, he's been on hiatus from the show for a while, but plans to return. He also co-hosted "Siskel and Ebert" with the late Gene Siskel for 24 years.
In June of 2006, Ebert had surgery for salivary cancer, which resulted in complications. He continues rehabilitating and increasing his work load, and in April 2007 attended Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, a celebration he hosts each year in his hometown of Urbana, Ill.
Ebert has written more than 15 books, including the best selling "Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary," published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. Other books include "Your Movie Sucks," "Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2007" and "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie."
Ebert has been a lecturer on film for the University of Chicago Fine Arts Program since 1970, where he is famous for his shot–by-shot commentary. He has also served on the juries of many prestigious film festivals, including Sundance, Montreal, Chicago, Hawaii and Venice. Ebert has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, among other distinguished prizes.
Today, Ebert is the most well-known film critic on the Internet, and his Web site has been named the best film review site of the year by the Online Film Critics' Society. He and his wife, Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert, live in Chicago where he enjoys cooking with his Japanese rice cooker.
Ebert has been a lecturer on film for the University of Chicago Fine Arts Program. His is known for his seminars of shot-by-shot film analysis at the universities of Chicago, Colorado and Virginia; the Smithsonian Institution; and the Canadian Center for the Advanced Study of Film. He has also recorded a shot-by-shot commentary track for the DVD version of "Dark City."
Ebert has attended the Cannes Film Festival for more than 25 years and has written a book about it ("Two Weeks in the Midday Sun") illustrated with his own sketches. He has served on juries at the Sundance, Montreal, Chicago, Hawaii and Venice film festivals. In 1999, Ebert began his own "Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival," which takes place in April at the historic Virginia theater in his hometown of Champaign-Urbana, Ill.
In addition to the Pulitzer, Ebert has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado, the Peter Lisagor Award for Best Feature Column from the Chicago Headline Club in 1998 and 1999, and has been named to the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame.
Ebert was born in Urbana, Ill., where he began his professional newspaper career at the age of 15 as a sports writer for the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette. He graduated from the University of Illinois, where he was editor of The Daily Illini. He did graduate work at the universities of Illinois; Cape Town, South Africa (on a Rotary Fellowship); and Chicago before being hired by the Sun-Times in 1966. He was appointed the paper's film critic six months later.
When he is not viewing and reviewing movies, Ebert's hobbies include reading, cyberspace, walking, travel, sketching, cosmology, Darwinism and using the Japanese rice cooker to cook almost anything. He lives with his wife, trial attorney Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert, in Chicago.
