The Buzz: Roger Ebert dies at 70

Tears in the newsroom. Roger Ebert, whose thumb orientation and effortless writing came to stand for movie criticism itself, has died at 70. The Chicago Sun-Times, his employer of 46 years, announced he succumbed to cancer Thursday.

His death came just two days after Ebert — calling him by his first name, in Buzz tradition, would be silly — announced a “leave of presence” from reviewing movies. “It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital,” he wrote Tuesday on his blog. “So on bad days I may write about the vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness.”