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Sad news to report  to the film buffs of the world: Roger Ebert has died, he was 70. Ebert’s former employer, The Chicago Sun Times, broke the news of his passing via Twitter.

“It is with a heavy heart we report that legendary film critic Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago) has passed away,” the Sun-Times tweeted. “There is a hole that can’t be filled. One of the greats has left us.”

The Illinois native passed away at his Chicago home, and had been dealing with health issues over the last decade. Ebert announced the return of his cancer in a blog post Tuesday (April 2). ” The ‘painful fracture’ that made it difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer,” he wrote. “It is being treated with radiation, which has made it impossible for me to attend as many movies as I used to.”

He battled both cancer of the salivary gland and thyroid, resulting in having a portion of his lower jaw removed.

Yet, even with the change in his physical appearance and speech ability, he remained a staunch, sometimes brutally honest, critic of films. His career with The Sun-Times lasted 46 years, but it was his show Siskel & Ebert that brought him the most notoriety (Drake even shouted him out on “Over”).

In 1999 his co-host, Gene Siskel, died after a bought with brain cancer. Siskel replaced by fellow Sun-Times journalist, Richard Roper, before the show was cancelled in 2010.

Photo: AP