ABC News Joel Siegel Dies of colon cancer

[rebound]

Fought for five years after being diagnosed:

ABC News Story

Colleagues Comments

[motordavid]

I liked him, his style and his wit...
63 isn't a long enough ride.
Off to Valhalla...rip.

[Thunder22]

Originally Posted by motordavid

I liked him, his style and his wit...
63 isn't a long enough ride.
Off to Valhalla...rip.

he was a main stay of NY entertainment news. No b.s., no drama, just good reviews... he'll be missed.

[motordavid]

A Good Rememberance from the NewYawKTimes...
A very witty, entertaining, self-deprecating, well wrote
critic and, a mirror on our lives, imo. And, much too short
of a ride...

Joel Siegel, 63, Movie Critic Who Instructed and Amused, Dies

By EDWARD WYATT

Published: June 30, 2007

Joel Siegel, the longtime film critic for ABC News whose pithy reviews could capture the essence of a new film in a few words without giving too much away, died yesterday in New York. He was 63.




The cause was colon cancer, which Mr. Siegel had battled in recent years, according to an announcement by ABC.

Mr. Siegel had been a regular presence on “Good Morning America” since he joined the show in 1981. His Friday morning reviews were a frequent source of the encapsulated blurbs that scream out from movie ads in newspapers, on billboards and on television.

But the reviews were known as much for their wit as for the likelihood that they would encourage people to go to the movies. In reviewing “The Pursuit of Happyness,” for example, Mr. Siegel said the film “gets a ‘C’ for spelling and an ‘A’ for acting; it could also get an Oscar for Will Smith.” Mr. Smith was in fact nominated this year for best actor in a leading role, but the Oscar went to Forest Whitaker, for “The Last King of Scotland.”

Mr. Siegel was also the host of an annual Oscar program, “Joel Siegel’s Road to the Academy Awards,” which was broadcast for 10 years on WABC-TV, the network’s New York affiliate, and was syndicated to more than 100 stations across the country.

“He didn’t seem to have an agenda when coming to a screening,” said Pat Kingsley, the Hollywood publicist whose clients have included such film luminaries as Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks and Jodie Foster. “We just knew he had the feel of the audience. That’s why you always would want him to like your films. His audience seemed to trust his opinion of films.”
Mr. Siegel was born on July 7, 1943, in Los Angeles, and graduated cum laude from the University of California at Los Angeles. During college, he worked to register black voters in Georgia, and he spoke frequently of having met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also worked as a joke writer for Senator Robert F. Kennedy and was at the Ambassador Hotel the night the senator was assassinated.

At times his work was less weighty; while a copywriter and producer at an advertising agency, he worked for a while inventing names for ice cream flavors for Baskin-Robbins.

After four years as a feature reporter for WCBS-TV in New York, Mr. Siegel moved to WABC in 1976 as the station’s entertainment critic.

At age 57, Mr. Siegel learned that he had cancer, a revelation that came only two weeks after he learned that he would soon become a father for the first time. Given no guarantees that he would be around to see his child born, Mr. Siegel decided to write a book, a compilation of life lessons that he titled “Lessons for Dylan: From Father to Son.” It was published by PublicAffairs in 2003.

Long before, Mr. Siegel had worked to provide help to those with cancer. In 1991, he joined with the actor Gene Wilder to found Gilda’s Club, a nonprofit organization that provided social support for cancer patients and their families. The organization was named for Mr. Wilder’s wife, Gilda Radner, who died of cancer.

Mr. Siegel found his way to Broadway, writing the book for “The First,” a musical based on the story of Jackie Robinson. Mr. Siegel was nominated for a Tony Award in 1982 for the play.
He is survived by his son, Dylan, and his wife, Ena Swansea, an artist, both of New York.