I grew up watching “Sneak Previews” (later titled “At the Movies” and then “Siskel and Ebert”) with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. When Siskel died in 1999 after complications from brain surgery, Ebert soldiered on with Richard Roeper.
In 2002, Ebert learned he had thyroid cancer. By 2006, Ebert bowed out of the show after he had surgery on cancerous tissue in his jaw. The surgery removed a section of his jaw bone, disfiguring Ebert. His health was precarious for a while, but it stabilized. However, the surgery took his voice.
When he could, Ebert returned to his movie reviews, sometimes with the help of wife Chaz. He had no problem appearing in public, despite losing part of his jaw, although he did say “I studiously avoided looking at myself in a mirror.” Still, he was a beacon of encouragement to live life to the fullest to many cancer survivors.
This week, Ebert unveiled a new silicone prosthesis for his face. It fits over his lower face and matches his skin color. While he says this is not to “fool anyone” – “my appearance is widely known” – it is as he called it, “a pleasant reminder of the person I was for 64 years.”
Ebert will wear the prosthesis, which took two years to construct, during his new show “Roger Ebert Presents: At the Movies.”
Oprah Winfrey said yesterday she had news and today it was announced that she has a half-sister. She learned this last October, an event which left the television mogul “speechless.”
She introduced her sister Patricia to her viewers on today’s show. When Oprah was 9-years-old, her mother Vernita Lee became pregnant. She gave Patricia up for adoption in 1963. Patricia would drift from foster home to foster home until she was 7.
Needless to say, Patricia was surprised when she searched for her biological family for years and finally got the package saying who her famous sister was.
Oprah calls it the “miracle of all miracles.”