Cancer may have beaten him at last, but I swear, it didn’t win.  These were his final words to his readers, published earlier this week. Excerpt:

The immediate reason for my “leave of presence” is my health. The “painful fracture” that made it difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer. It is being treated with radiation, which has made it impossible for me to attend as many movies as I used to. I have been watching more of them on screener copies that the studios have been kind enough to send to me. My friend and colleague Richard Roeper and other critics have stepped up and kept the newspaper and website current with reviews of all the major releases. So we have and will continue to go on.

At this point in my life, in addition to writing about movies, I may write about what it’s like to cope with health challenges and the limitations they can force upon you. It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital. 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.

… So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies.

Three days later, fin.

I met Ebert once, at Sundance, in 1999. I was starstruck. I didn’t get starstruck speaking to movie starts, but to writers I admired? Uhhhh. I couldn’t believe Roger Ebert — Roger Ebert! — was talking to me like I was a normal person. He couldn’t possibly have been nicer. He struck me as just an ordinary guy from the Midwest. This was the most famous film journalist in America, and probably (therefore) the world, and he came off as just another guy who loves movies and other people.

I’ll update this post with the better remembrances I read of Ebert. Pray for him and his widow Chaz.

UPDATE: Will Leitch on how Ebert responded when he, Leitch, was an undergraduate journalist at Ebert’s college paper. Excerpt:

Because I was 19, I took this as an invitation to keep bothering Ebert, and over the next two years, I emailed him regularly, with questions about my career, with movie reviews I’d written and hoped he would offer tips on, with requests for advice on writing, on life, on the tough job market that awaited me upon graduation. Ebert wrote back to every single one, with lengthy and heartfelt missives that were far more than a snot-nosed kid clearly getting off on Knowing Roger Ebert deserved. I have no idea why he did it. He told me “that this is important to you as it is, that’s a very large percentage of what you need, really.” He emphasized that such ephemera like “career” and “success” were mostly beside the point. “Just write, get better, keep writing, keep getting better. It’s the only thing you can control.”

Ebert even recommended me for a job stringing movie reviews for the suburban Daily Southtown newspaper. For the first one — the Robert Downey Jr. movie Restoration — I borrowed my friend Mike’s car and drove up to a Chicago screening room. I didn’t know Chicago well and of course got lost, just sneaking into the theater right as the lights were going down. After the movie, I walked out to the elevator, and standing there, was Ebert.

“Sir,” I said, talking very fast. “I’m Will Leitch, from the DI. I wanted to thank you and say what an honor it is to me. I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done. I promise not to abuse it.”

Ebert was bigger then, and his hand was meaty and sweaty.

“Of course, Will, I’m happy to help you in any way. You have talent, and anyone from the DI is a friend of mine,” he said. “Actually, I’m going to be in Champaign in a few weeks for a screening at the New Art, and I’d love to meet with you and some of the staff beforehand. Is Papa Del’s still open?”