Film Critic Roger Ebert Says He Hopes To Start Reviewing Again Soon
Posted August 19, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
He may not have gotten the chance to review Snakes On A Plane, but prominent film critic Roger Ebert is looking forward to getting back to the movie theatre soon.
Battling cancer in a Chicago hospital, Ebert said that the recovery has been a tough one – he’s been hospitalized for two months now – but planned to give his famous thumb a workout as soon as possible.
“I don’t have a crystal ball, so I can’t tell you when, but I sure look forward to being back on the movie beat,” the reviewer said in a statement Thursday.
Known for his “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” assessments, Ebert had surgery on June 16 to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland. He had emergency surgery a couple weeks later after a blood vessel burst near where the operation took place.
“When I announced that I had a recurrence of salivary cancer that required surgery, I had no idea when I went into the hospital on June 16 that I would still be here on August 16,” Ebert said.
The 64-year-old had undergone surgery three times before the June operation – once in 2002 to remove a tumour on his thyroid gland and twice on his salivary gland in 2003.
He said in the statement that his voice isn’t what it was before the treatment and he’ll have to strengthen his vocal cords in rehabilitation.
“(The) doctors are moving cautiously,” he said. “But they are enthusiastically optimistic about my recovery.”
Ebert started reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967, receiving a Pulitzer Prize for his work in 1975. At that point, he teamed up with Gene Siskel of rival newspaper the Chicago Tribune to launch a movie review show. Siskel died in 1999 of complications relating to the brain surgery he was undergoing to remove a brain tumour.
Since 2000 Ebert has been reviewing films on the show with fellow Sun-Times writer Richard Roeper.
