Gene Siskel; Gave Film Criticism Mass Appeal

CHICAGO —  Gene Siskel, who along with partner Roger Ebert brought film criticism to the masses with their weekly television program and ingeniously concise thumbs-up, thumbs-down rating system, died here Saturday at age 53.

Fondly referred to by fans as “the skinny one” to distinguish him from his portly cohort Ebert, Siskel underwent surgery in May to remove a growth from his brain, but he soon returned to the syndicated “Siskel & Ebert at the Movies” show and to his four other jobs, as film critic for the Chicago Tribune, TV Guide, “CBS This Morning” and WBBM-TV in Chicago.

Then, earlier this month, he announced that he was taking time off to rest and further recuperate from the surgery. But, in characteristically sly humor, he predicted a swift return: “I’m in a hurry to get well because I don’t want Roger to get more screen time than I. Also, this experience will give me a chance to work out my left thumb--the stunt double.”

He died at Evanston Hospital, north of Chicago, on a cold, snowy day, surrounded by his family. The cause of death was not released.

“Gene was a lifelong friend, and our professional competition only strengthened that bond,” Ebert said in a statement. “He showed great bravery in the months after his surgery, continuing to work as long as he could.

“As a critic, he was passionate and exacting. As a husband and a father, his love knew no bounds.”

A native of Chicago, Siskel earned his bachelor’s degree at Yale University in 1967 and returned home and began writing for the Tribune in 1969. He first hooked up with Ebert, film critic for the rival Chicago Sun-Times, in 1975 on the public television program “Sneak Previews,” originally known as “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You.”

In 1982, their program went into syndication, and the two began joyfully bickering and blustering their way to fame, at the same time largely molding popular movie criticism, moving the once-esoteric genre from the arts pages of newspapers into millions of living rooms each week.

“He, along with his partner Roger Ebert, took film criticism into the mainstream,” said Paul Dergarabedian of Exhibitor Relations Co., which compiles box office receipts. “The average person would look toward them about whether to take their hard-earned dollars to the box office.”

“Two thumbs up!” became the most sought-after endorsement in Hollywood. “Two thumbs down” could, many believed, break a film.

Once, when some students of film derided the program as easy pop criticism, Siskel defended the show as “the distillation between the two of us of 39 years of writing about movies.”

Genteel, but with a cutting sarcasm, the balding, wiry Siskel was as outspoken and opinionated about movie makers as he was about movies.

He criticized the Oscars as overrated awards, suggesting that Academy Award nominations were for sale to the filmmaker with the biggest advertising budget.

He suggested that film critics were more qualified to pick Oscar nominees than members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. After all, he said, the critics have seen all the movies.

In 1995, he took on anti-Hollywood politicos, lambasting Bob Dole for a major speech the then-presidential candidate had delivered in Los Angeles accusing Hollywood and music labels of marketing “nightmares of depravity” and “mainstreaming deviancy.”

“No one on Planet Earth has knocked American movies more than me--52 weeks a year, 26 years,” he told an Orange County gathering. “I wish movies were better--more than you. You go to one movie a month, I go to six a week.”

But, he said, Dole was practicing disingenuous politics when he blamed movies for serious cultural problems. “When it diverts the national agenda from the real problems, when the same person is saying, ‘Cancel the violent movies but let’s make sure we have plenty of assault weapons’--that’s sinful, isn’t it?”

Just a few days ago, it was announced that Tom Shales, the syndicated critic for the Washington Post, would be paired with Ebert as one of a series of co-hosts while Siskel was on leave. There was no immediate announcement Saturday from the Walt Disney Co. as to its plans for the show, which appears in the Los Angeles area on KABC Channel 7 on Sunday nights at 6:30.

Siskel is survived by his wife and three children.