--- description: Roger Ebert's common sense and uncommon courage title: Hero of His Own Movie image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # Hero of His Own Movie by [Richard Corliss](/author/richard-corliss/) Apr 22, 2013 4:00 AM CUT by [Richard Corliss](/author/richard-corliss/) Apr 22, 2013 4:00 AM CUT He went out fighting, and writing. Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize–winning film reviewer for the Chicago Sun-Times and a TV star for his series of critics’ klatches with Gene Siskel and Richard Roeper, had been battling cancer for more than a decade. On April 2, two days before his death, he announced “a leave of presence”; the disease had metastasized, forcing him to scale back his output. But he was also concentrating on some big plans: for the documentary being made about him by Steve James; for the 15th annual Ebertfest, to be held in Champaign, Ill., where he went to college; and for his popular website, [RogerEbert.com](https://RogerEbert.com "undefined") In his 46 years as a critic, Roger streamed millions of words, by voice and print, by digital and social media. He shared his thoughts on the Internet long before friend was a verb; rare for a critic, he was as interested in other people’s opinions as his own. He was at ease with his celebrity, always amiable to strangers who approached him at film festivals. And in his last seven years, when he endured more outrages of fate than Job, he demonstrated with grace and grit–and with his beloved wife Chaz at his side–how a man’s spirit could flourish as he tried to outthink death. My first impression of Roger dates back to 1970, when I saw Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a thrillingly gaudy Hollywood exposé/comedy/musical/slasher film that the 27-year-old Roger co-scripted. In the pages of National Review, I named Beyond the Valley of the Dolls as one of the 10 best films of the 1970s. Roger frequently referred to that notice, if only to raise doubts about my own critical acuity. Over the next four decades, my wife Mary and I would reune with Roger at film festivals: Cannes, Toronto (of which he was an early champion) and a biennial schmooze cruise called the Floating Film Festival. One night in Manhattan, my hometown, the three of us went to the sex club Plato’s Retreat–as observers only–tiptoeing on a boardwalk in the middle of the room as women and their hairy mates in socks took their pleasures. (A pity no blog existed then for Roger to record his impressions.) Our friendship endured a little bump with a 1990 essay I wrote for Film Comment about the Siskel & Ebert show. I knew its popularity was rooted in the two men’s clashing, odd-couple personalities and that the show was less a salon of criticism than a sitcom about two guys who lived in a movie theater. But I found it guilty of reducing film criticism to a plot synopsis and two thumbs up or down, as if he and Siskel were Roman emperors deciding a gladiator’s fate. Roger responded to my raillery in good humor, defending his show without calling me an ignorant slut. I never felt a reduction of amity. In 2006 at Cannes, Roger, Chaz, Mary and I repaired to the iconic eatery La Pizza for one of our loveliest evenings together. Roger mentioned that he had to return to Chicago for a little surgery. No problem–he’d be back on his TV show in a few weeks. That surgery, and two others to treat his cancer, failed, leaving him without a jaw, unable to speak, eat, drink or sleep in a bed. But Roger kept appearing at film festivals. Mary and I still spent time with him in Toronto and Cannes and served as two of his surrogates at the 2008 Ebertfest. His writing, always briskly assured, gained a maturity and sustaining wit as he confronted his condition. He appraised it almost as if it were a movie–a thing to be observed in all its facets and evaluated with a passionate curiosity. By awful chance, he had found a great subject, and he raised his game to give it both personal and poetic justice. In his memoir, Life Itself, Roger contemplated his demise: “I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear … I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. “ So Roger has taken a permanent “leave of presence,” as if his work as a critic could ever be absent from the film lover’s mind. As President Obama said, “The movies won’t be the same without Roger.” And neither, for his friends and fans, will life itself. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6643416/hero-of-his-own-movie/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6643416/hero-of-his-own-movie/"},"headline":"Hero of His Own Movie","datePublished":"2013-04-22T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T16:32:25.521Z","description":"Roger Ebert's common sense and uncommon courage","url":"https://time.com/archive/6643416/hero-of-his-own-movie/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Richard Corliss","url":"https://time.com/author/richard-corliss/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6643416/hero-of-his-own-movie/","name":"Hero of His Own Movie"}}]}] ```