Roger Ebert | Photo by Eileen Ryan

Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. “We were the same age but I realized his understanding of movies was much deeper than my own,” Ebert writes. | Sean Gallup~Getty Images

L-R: Honoree Roger Ebert with Marca Bristo (Access Living President and CEO)

Roger and Chaz Ebert with one of their seven rice cookers.

Ebert gets red-carpet treatment: Roger Ebert, Chaz Ebert and Trend columnist Lee Litas, Vernon Hills | Lee Litas~for Sun-Times Media

"Life Itself: A Memoir," by Roger Ebert

Felicia Middlebrooks, from left, Roger Ebert, and Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert celebrate Roger Ebert's Lifetime Achievement Award at The 34th Annual Peter Lisagor Awards at the Hotel Allegro Friday, May 6, 2011, in Chicago. | John J. Kim~Sun-Times

Dr. David Rotter shot this picture after fitting Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert’s new silicone prosthesis. | David Rotter

Roger Ebert gives a thumb's up as Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert reads Roger Ebert's acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Award at The 34th Annual Peter Lisagor Awards at the Hotel Allegro Friday, May 6, 2011, in Chicago. | John J. Kim~Sun-Times

Roger Ebert

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Roger Ebert receives the Chicago Public Library and CPL’s Foundation's Carl Sandburg Literary Award on Oct. 20 at The Forum, Chicago | Megan Bearder Photography

Authors Congratulate Carl Sandburg Literary Award Winner Roger Ebert. Photo Credit: Johnny Knight

Roger Ebert and Oprah Winfrey.

Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner co-chair Dia Weil (left), Carl Sandburg Literary Award recipient Roger Ebert and wife Chaz Ebert. | Photos by Johnny Knight

Roger Ebert, Chaz Ebert and actor Michael Shannon like what they see Saturday at Ebertfest. Shannon visited the festival to show his 2011 film “Take Shelter.”

A believer in “touchstone” destinations that one returns to again and again, Roger Ebert visited Cannes, France, as a younger man and in 2009 (pictured) with wife Chaz and director Martin Scorsese. | SEAN GALLUP~Getty Images

A believer in “touchstone” destinations that one returns to again and again, Roger Ebert visits Cannes, France, as a younger man.

A teenage Ebert interviews Estes Kefauver in 1956. Once one can read and write well, he says, “everything follows from that.”