Roger Ebert - Early Life

Early Life

Roger Joseph Ebert was born in Urbana, Illinois, the son of Annabel (née Stumm) and Walter H. Ebert, an electrician. His paternal grandparents were German immigrants and his maternal ancestry is Dutch and Irish. Ebert's interest in journalism began as a student at Urbana High School, where he was a sports writer for The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois; however, he began his writing career with letters of comment to the science fiction fanzines of the era. He became involved in science fiction fandom, writing articles for fanzines, including Richard A. Lupoff's Xero. In his senior year, he was co-editor of his high school newspaper, The Echo. In 1958, Ebert won the Illinois High School Association state speech championship in Radio Speaking, an event that simulates radio newscasts.

Regarding his early influences in film critiquing, Ebert wrote in the 1998 parody collection Mad About the Movies:

"I learned to be a movie critic by reading Mad magazine... Mad's parodies made me aware of the machine inside the skin—of the way a movie might look original on the outside, while inside it was just recycling the same old dumb formulas. I did not read the magazine, I plundered it for clues to the universe. Pauline Kael lost it at the movies; I lost it at Mad magazine."

Ebert began taking classes at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an early entrance student, completing his high school courses while also taking his first university class. After graduation from Urbana High School in 1960, Ebert then attended and received his undergraduate degree. While at the University of Illinois, Ebert worked as a reporter for the The Daily Illini and then served as its editor during his senior year while also continuing to work as a reporter for the News-Gazette of Champagne-Urbana, Illinois (he had begun at the News-Gazette at age 15 covering Urbana High School sports). As an undergraduate, he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity and president of the U.S. Student Press Association at Illinois. One of the first movie reviews he ever wrote was a review of La Dolce Vita, published in The Daily Illini in October 1961.

After receiving his undergraduate degree from Illinois in 1964, Ebert spent a semester as a master's student in the department of English there before attending the University of Cape Town in South Africa on a Rotary fellowship for a year. He returned from Cape Town to his graduate studies at Illinois for two more semesters and then, after being accepted as a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago, he prepared to move to Chicago. He needed a job to support himself while he worked on his doctorate and so applied to the Chicago Daily News, hoping that since he had already sold freelance pieces to the Daily News, including an article on the death of writer Brendan Behan, that he would be hired by editor Herman Kogan. Instead Kogan referred Ebert to the city editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, Jim Hoge, who hired Ebert as a reporter and feature writer at the Sun-Times in 1966. Ebert attended doctoral classes at the University of Chicago while working as a general reporter at the Sun-Times for a year. After movie critic Eleanor Keane left the Sun-Times in April 1967, editor Robert Zonk gave the job to Ebert. The load of graduate school and being a film critic proved too much, so Ebert left University of Chicago to focus his energies on reporting.