Roger Ebert: No Longer an Eater, Still a Cook

[lsanderson]

Joe Raymond for The New York Times
Chaz Ebert, left, with her husband, Roger, who uses gestures, looks and a notebook to communicate.
By KIM SEVERSON
Published: August 31, 2010

THE first several minutes at a restaurant with Roger Ebert are awkward.

It’s not that you can’t find a million things to discuss. Mr. Ebert, 68, has reviewed movies for more than four decades. He’s driven around with Robert Mitchum while the actor got stoned and lost on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. He once owned a 1957 Studebaker and still owns a Pulitzer Prize.

The thing is, he doesn’t eat and he doesn’t talk. Or rather, he can’t eat and he can’t talk. He hasn’t for four years, ever since cancer took his lower jaw, and three attempts to rebuild his face and his voice failed. More