A full and busy day of conference activities concluded Saturday night with the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement award to Roger Ebert, who appeared live from Chicago via Skype.
The NSNC Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award is given yearly to honor a columnist who exemplifies outstanding achievement. It is the NSNC organization’s highest honor.
Roger Ebert has been the film critic of the Chicago Sun–Times since 1967 and his reviews are syndicated in more than 200 newspapers around the world. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975.
The following year, Roger and Gene Siskel began a long run of programs including “Siskel and Ebert” in which they reviewed movies on TV. After Siskel’s death in 1999, he was joined by Richard Roeper until illness deprived him of the ability to speak.
Ebert is the author of more than 20 books, including the 2002 best-seller “The Great Movies,” In 2010 he published a practical cookbook.
For years he has attended film festivals around the world – as a critic and as a juror – and launched his own film festival in 1999, an annual event presented every April in his hometown of Champaign-Urbana, IL.
Elbert is the only film critic honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He lives with his wife, Chaz, in Chicago, where they now produce “Ebert Presents at the Movies,” which is syndicated nationwide on PBS.
