By PETE HAMMOND

Certainly Roger Ebert will be remembered for many things. Winning an unprecedented Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for film criticism is just one of them. For me, though, beyond that distinction Roger was far more unique in the pantheon of the truly great critics of our time, and all time. Along with Gene Siskel he figured out a way to take film criticism to the masses in a way it never really had been, at least on a national basis. With their patented ’2 Thumbs Up’ and ’2 Thumbs Down’ reviews on their pioneering PBS and later syndicated weekly TV show, this pair not only brought the job of a film critic into the national consciousness, they also made it fun. And accessible. The ‘thumbs’ signature was really the forerunner of a site like Rotten Tomatoes, an instantly recognizable label that moviegoers could use like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval when it appeared in an ad as it did hundreds of times.

By Mark Deming

Roger Ebert was America’s best-known film critic – and arguably its best. But that was hardly his only accomplishment in a long and distinguished career. Ebert, who died Thursday at the age of 70, wasn’t just a critic, but a screenwriter, a music fan, an on-line activist, a historian, and even Oprah Winfrey’s date for an evening. As we remember Ebert’s life and work, here are eight things you might not have known about the man.

Ebert invented “Two Thumbs Up.” Ebert’s famous TV partnership with Gene Siskel began in 1975 with a local program aired once a month called “Coming Soon To A Theater Near You.” By 1978, it had become a weekly PBS show called “Sneak Previews,” and was a hit in the ratings. When Buena Vista Television (a division of Disney) offered Ebert and Siskel a more lucrative deal in 1986, they took it, but needed to make some changes so as not to seem like they were ripping off the old show. That meant no longer giving movies a “Yes” or “No” vote as they had before. “I came up with the idea of giving thumbs up and thumbs down,” Ebert later said. “And the reason that Siskel and I were able to trademark that is that the phrase ‘two thumbs up’ in connection with movies had never been used. And in fact, the phrase ‘two thumbs up’ was not in the vernacular. And now, of course, it’s part of the language.”

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