February 21, 1999
BY ROBERT FEDER TELEVISION/RADIO COLUMNIST
Gene Siskel, a Chicago treasure whose lifelong love of movies and combative chemistry with partner Roger Ebert made him one of the most popular and powerful film critics in America, died Saturday.
Mr. Siskel, 53, who had been battling back since surgery to remove a growth in his brain last May, died at Evanston Hospital.
His condition had worsened in recent weeks, prompting him to take a leave of absence from ``Siskel & Ebert,'' his nationally syndicated movie-review show, and his other jobs with ``CBS This Morning,'' WBBM-Channel 2, TV Guide and the Chicago Tribune.
``He worked all the way until the last minute,'' said his wife, Marlene Iglitzen. ``He was still working on the [Tribune's] 29th `Beat Siskel' contest as recently as last Thursday.''
Services will be at 1 p.m. Monday at North Suburban Synagogue Beth El, 1175 Sheridan Rd., Highland Park. Burial will be private.
``Gene was a lifelong friend, and our professional competition only strengthened that bond,'' Ebert said. ``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.''
Mr. Siskel's influence as a film critic extended far beyond the box-office choices of millions of viewers and readers each week. His thumbs-up and thumbs-down verdicts changed the way Hollywood produced and marketed movies.
Born Jan. 26, 1946, in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the Far North Side, Eugene Kal Siskel showed such early prowess as a math whiz that he skipped the third grade. He also became enchanted with the movies, thanks to countless Saturday matinees he attended at the Nortown Theater.
Although he listed ``Citizen Kane'' as the greatest movie of all time, he considered a Disney animated classic as the most personally meaningful to him.
``The movie with the strongest emotional pull of my youth was `Dumbo,' '' he once recalled. ``It thrilled and scared me. I mourned his mother in chains. I rooted for him to fly. It was like my whole ego was riding right on his trunk.''
His parents died before he reached his teens, and Mr. Siskel and his two siblings moved in with their aunt, uncle and three cousins in north suburban Glencoe.
After graduating from Yale University with a degree in philosophy, Mr. Siskel volunteered for the Army Reserve, where he found his way into journalism at Fort Benjamin Harrison near Indianapolis.
``They asked me if I wanted to be a truck driver or a cook or a journalist,'' he recalled. ``I didn't take too long to pick journalist.''
In 1969, he was hired as a neighborhood news reporter at the Tribune. Seven months later, he talked himself into a job as film critic.
Mr. Siskel's television career began in 1974, when news director Van Gordon Sauter hired him to deliver reviews for Channel 2 newscasts. That's where Mr. Siskel met his best friend and future wife, Iglitzen, who was a producer at the CBS-owned station.
A defining moment in his life--and in television history--occurred the following year when WTTW-Channel 11 teamed up Mr. Siskel and Ebert, his Chicago Sun-Times competitor, on ``Opening Soon at a Theater Near You.'' It turned out to be a classic pairing of opposites.
Audiences responded immediately to their brutal honesty as critics and their feisty competition as newspapermen. ``The discussions really were spontaneous,'' Thea Flaum, their first producer, once said. ``Neither knew what the other was going to say.''
It was Flaum's idea for the hosts to wear casual clothes just as most people do when they go to the movies. ``We've always wanted viewers to feel as if they were just eavesdropping on a couple of guys who loved movies and were having a spontaneous discussion that we'd be doing even if they weren't watching,'' Mr. Siskel once recalled.
The dueling duo became national celebrities after PBS picked up the show, which had been renamed ``Sneak Previews,'' in 1977. They entered commercial syndication with Tribune Entertainment's ``At the Movies'' in 1982. In 1986, they switched to Buena Vista Television, the syndication division of Walt Disney Co., and renamed the show ``Siskel & Ebert.''
Mr. Siskel paid a price for taking his lucrative show away from Tribune Entertainment. In retaliation, the Chicago Tribune replaced him as film critic and demoted him to film columnist. Nevertheless, he remained better known--and more closely identified with the newspaper--than his successors.
Thanks to their show and frequent guest appearances with Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Jay Leno, Gene and Roger became household names and the subject of countless tributes and parodies. Mr. Siskel once called being satirized in Mad magazine ``the high point of our career.''
In 1995, a portion of Erie Street near the CBS studios was renamed ``Siskel & Ebert Way.'' In 1997, Mr. Siskel was inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame.
As passionate as he was about movies, Mr. Siskel was equally ardent about the Bulls. Just weeks after his surgery, he was back in his familiar courtside seat for Michael Jordan's final NBA championship game June 12 at the United Center.
Determined to overcome his illness, Mr. Siskel bounced back almost immediately, resuming all five of his media jobs and insisting that production continue on ``Siskel & Ebert'' even if he had to phone in his comments to Ebert for the first few weeks from his hospital bed.
Mr. Siskel's last appearance on ``Siskel & Ebert'' aired on Jan. 23. That same day, he made his last public appearance when he celebrated the bat mitzvah of his second daughter, Callie. Despite difficulty standing and walking, he performed valiantly, delivering a powerfully emotional tribute to his daughter.
``People may have thought he loved film more than anything, but he loved his family most of all, as much as he hated injustice and bigotry,'' said Howard Tyner, editor of the Chicago Tribune.
With the death of Mr. Siskel, the show's future is uncertain. Washington Post critic Tom Shales filled in for Mr. Siskel when he left the show earlier this month to recuperate from the surgery.
``The show will continue with revolving guest critics,'' Ebert said. ``In the future, we will see.''
Mr. Siskel's family has established a charitable trust in his name. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to: Gene Siskel Charitable Foundation, 108 W. Grand Ave., Chicago 60610.
Survivors include his wife; two daughters, Kate and Callie; a son, Will; adoptive mother Mae Gray, and an extended family of brothers and sisters.