Roger Ebert, film critic who coined the phrase "two thumbs up," dies of cancer "It is with a heavy heart we report that legendary film critic Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) has passed away," the Chicago Sun-Times, the newspaper where Ebert worked for decades, said on Twitter. On Tuesday, he posted a blog entry saying he was taking a "leave of presence" from his more than 40-year career and scaling back his work after doctors diagnosed his cancer had returned. It was discovered by doctors after he fractured his hip in December. "The 'painful fracture' that made it difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer," Ebert said in the blog posting, giving no further details about the type of cancer or diagnosis. "I am not going away," he added. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews ... What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review. Ebert's reviews were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers and he had been reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975. Forbes magazine dubbed Ebert the most powerful pundit in America in 2007.