Roger Ebert's friend and former co-host, Richard Roeper, describes the film critic as a larger-than-life guy with a passion for the movies. Ebert died at age 70, two days after revealing he had cancer again.
"I'm grateful today that he's actually at peace, and very grateful for the outpouring of sympathy and love that I'm hearing from people all the way from the president of the United States to guys on the street," says Roeper. "He had that everyman quality, which is what I think made him such a universally beloved critic."
Ebert and Roeper's show began in 2000, before Ebert was diagnosed with thyroid and salivary gland cancer. In 2006 he lost his jaw, and with it, the ability to speak and eat. That didn't stop Ebert from delivering his sharp-witted commentary on films and a variety of other topics on his blog.
"He had gone through so many operations and he had been in so much pain, yet, he continued to work because he found joy in the work, and he found joy in the writing. And he was brave and he was interested and engaged with the world up until the very end," says Roeper.
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Post by: Anderson Cooper Filed under: Entertainment • Pop Culture |
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I don't believe i have ever heard a more comforting nor profound perspective on hereafter. Wish i had known him.