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| Film critic Roger Ebert poses for photographers
Thursday, June 23, 2005, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. Ebert was honored Thursday
with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (AP
Photo/Ric Francis) |
Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert isn't
a movie star but he critiques
them on TV — so memorably that on Thursday he received his
own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
A crowd of family, friends
and fans cheered as Ebert's star was unveiled in front of Hollywood's El
Capitan Theatre. Attendees included director Werner Herzog, actress
Virginia Madsen and actor Tony Danza.
"When I watch movies, I can feel what it's like to walk in another
person's shoes," Ebert, 65, told the crowd. "Movies make us more decent
people. This is a wonderful day for me."
Ebert, who began his journalism career as a 15-year-old sports writer
for The (Champaign, Ill.) News-Gazette, was named the Chicago Sun-Times
film critic six months after joining the paper in 1966. In 1975, he became
the first film critic to receive a Pulitzer for arts criticism.
That same year Ebert teamed
with the late Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel on
the TV show "Sneak Previews," which would evolve into the long-running
"Siskel & Ebert and the Movies." Their "thumbs up, thumbs down" system
of rating films became so popular that Ebert eventually trademarked his
right thumb.
Ebert now co-hosts "Ebert & Roeper" with fellow Sun-Times columnist
Richard Roeper.
A humorously unapologetic critic who once called a film "an assault on
the eyes, the ears, the brain," Ebert has written 17 books, including
"Roger Ebert's Book of Film" and "I Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie."
He has also dabbled as a screenwriter, with credits including "Beyond
the Valley of the Dolls" and "Beneath the Valley of the
Ultra-Vixens."
(AP) |
Updated: 2005-06-24 14:25
