Roger Ebert - Career

Career

Ebert began his professional critic career in 1967, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times. That same year, Ebert's first book, a history of the University of Illinois titled Illini Century: One Hundred Years of Campus Life was published by the University's press.

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

Ebert co-wrote the screenplay for the 1970 Russ Meyer film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and likes to joke about being responsible for the film, which was poorly received on its release but is now regarded as a cult classic. Ebert and Meyer also made Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, Up!, and others, and were involved in the ill-fated Sex Pistols movie Who Killed Bambi? In April 2010, Ebert posted his screenplay of "Who Killed Bambi?" aka "Anarchy in the UK" on his blog.

Since the 1970s, Ebert 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.

In 1975, Ebert and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune began co-hosting a weekly film review television show, Sneak Previews, which was locally 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 with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and in 1986 they left to create Siskel & Ebert & The Movies with Buena Vista Television (part of the Walt Disney Company). The duo was 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 2000, fellow Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper became the permanent co-host and the show was renamed At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper.

On January 31, 2009, Ebert was made an honorary life member of the Directors Guild of America during the group's annual awards ceremony.

Ebert ended his association with Disney in July 2008, after the studio indicated they wished to take At the Movies in a new direction. He and Gene Siskel's widow, Marlene Iglitzen Siskel, still own the trademark phrase "Two Thumbs Up." On February 18, 2009, Ebert reported that he and Roeper would soon announce a new movie review program. Ebert reiterated this plan after Disney announced the last episode of the program would air in August 2010.

Ebert stated in his August 18, 2010 "Answer Man" column that he was writing his memoirs.