PERSPECTIVES ON CANCER #7: The Wisdom and Courage of Roger Ebert

ROGER EBERT (b. 1942)

film critic, screenwriter, Pulitzer Prize for Criticism

Ebert at the Conference on World Affairs in September 2002,

shortly after his cancer diagnosis

We will go full-tilt New Media: Television, net streaming, cell phone apps, Facebook, Twitter, iPad, the whole enchilada,” he wrote. “The disintegration of the old model creates an opening for us. I’m more excited than I would be if we were trying to do the same old same old. I’ve grown up with the Internet. I came aboard back when MCI Mail was the e-mail of choice. I had a forum on CompuServe when it ruled the web. My website and blog at the Sun-Times site have changed the way I work, and even the way I think. When I lost my speech, I speeded up instead of slowing down.  Roger Ebert [via Biography.com]

THE WISDOM AND COURAGE OF ROGER EBERT

by

Jamie Dedes

Born in Urbana, Illinois, U.S. to parents of modest means who wanted a better life for him then they had, Ebert’s affinity for writing and film were encouraged. He went to Urbana High School, University of Chicago, and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is known for his film column in the Chicago Sun-Times (1967 – Present), his film guide books, and for the television programs he did in collaboration with Gene Siskel and later Richard Roeper. Ebert battled long and hard with alcoholism. He is married to a trial attorney, Charlie “Chaz” Hammel Smith, now Chaz Ebert and VP of Ebert Company. 

In 2002, Ebert was diagnosed with salivary cancer. He has had radiation treatments and multiple surgeries that effected his speech. In 2006, more cancer was found in his jaw bone. He was rushed to the hospital when his carotid artery burst and he “came within a breath of death.”  The jaw bone was removed. Between one thing and another, he suffered through excessive bleeding, loss of muscle mass, deformity, a jaw prosthetic, and the loss of his voice.

The reason I used that quote above on his acceptance of and enthusiasm for technology is because he has been a fearless and spirited user of voice box technology to address communication problems resulting from the cancer and its treatment. In the TED Award video below, he informs us of his – among other things – experiments with different voices. My own experience of various new technologies is improved testing for health maintenance and monitoring, and appropriate treatment. The web with its many blessings – albeit sometimes mixed – provides me with an affordable, home-bound outlet that offers an immediate venue for my work at the same time that it keeps me from being isolated. (I have an interstitial lung disease.)

I have always admired Roger Ebert as a writer, film critic, and the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Since he has been living with cancer and then the fallout from cancer, I have come to admire Roger Ebert, the man. He has shown himself to be a world-class role model and a first class human being. As you will see, through it all, he has retained his sense of humor. Write on Roger … 

Roger Ebert still reviews for the Sun Times. You can read the reviews HERE.

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ROGER EBERT: Remaking My Voice

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Photo credits ~ Ebert at the 2004 Savaanah Film Festival by Rebert under GNU Free Documentation License and Lillian Boutte and Roger Ebert by Jon Hurd under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Both photos via Wikipedia.

Video upload to YouTube by TEDtalksDirector. 

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Jamie Dedes ~ Jamie is a former freelance feature writer and columnist whose topic specialties were employment, vocational training, and business. She finds the blessing of medical retirement to be more time to indulge in her poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction. She has two novels in progress, one in final edits, and is pulling together a poetry collection. Her primary playground is Musing by Moonlight. She is the founder and editor/administrator of Into the Bardo. Jamie’s mother was diagnosed with cancer the first time at thirty-six. She went three rounds with breast cancer, one with thyroid cancer, and died at seventy-six of breast and colon cancer.

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INTO THE BARDO·

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