Man without a jaw finds his voice

If you're like me, you may be at once repulsed by and drawn to the photograph here.

It's Roger Ebert, half of the famed film critic duo, Siskel & Ebert.

Eight years ago, he underwent surgery for thyroid cancer. A year later, his salivary glands were partially removed. In 2006, the cancer came back in his jaw and he had a section of his lower jaw removed. After he had recuperated and was in his hospital room packing up to leave, his carotid artery burst. He would have bled to death had it happened anywhere else, but doctors worked frantically to patch him up. He underwent a tracheotomy and was left with much of his lower face hanging slack.

So, for more than three years, he has lived with a hole in his throat, unable to eat, drink or speak. Pretty bleak, you would think, for one with so much to say. This is a guy, after all, who along with the late Gene Siskel brought movie reviews -- with their signature "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" ratings -- into our living rooms with humor, insight and passion.

Think again.

In one of the most inspiring profiles I've ever read -- "The Last Words of Roger Ebert" in the March issue of Esquire -- Ebert says (er, writes) that no one should feel sorry for him. Communicating through handwritten notes on blue Post-its and his laptop computer, Ebert, at age 67, has become even more prolific as a writer and blogger. And that's saying something for someone who won the Pulitzer Prize way back in 1975, becoming the first film critic to win journalism's most conveted honor, and has written several books and thousands upon thousands of reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times.

His blog, rogerebert.com, has had 92 million visits and a quick stroll through the site reveals why. He's got more than a dozen categories, ranging from reviews and commentary to the Oscars, festivals and his personal journal, Roger Ebert's Journal. He answers readers questions directly and often responds to the thousands of comments left on his blog.

In a recent entry, he acknowledges that the Esquire profile was both intimate and personal and says it was "inexplicable instinct" that led him to agree to the interview with writer Chris Jones.

"When I turned to it in the magazine, I got a jolt from the full-page photograph of my jaw drooping," Ebert writes. "Not a lovely sight. But then I am not a lovely sight, and in a moment I thought, well, what the hell. It's just as well it's out there. That's how I look, after all."

It's that kind of clear-eyed acknowledgment of the truth, coupled with remarkable wisdom packed throughout, that makes the piece so memorable. Jones writes:

"We have a habit of turning sentimental about celebrities who are struck down -- Muhammad Ali, Christopher Reeve -- transforming them into mystics; still, it's almost impossible to sit beside Roger Ebert, lifting blue Post-it notes from his silk fingertips, and not feel as though he's becoming something more than he was. He has those hands. And his wide and expressive eyes, despite everything, are almost always smiling.

"There is no need to pity me, he writes on a scrap of paper one afternoon after someone parting looks at him a little sadly. Look how happy I am.' "

Later in the piece, there is this:

"I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problem, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."

I'm tempted to call Roger Ebert a hero. But I know we often and too quickly delude ourselves into thinking we know celebrities, or at least those who are in the public eye. Still, I think a good profile reveals something of a person's essential character. Along with a wonderful piece that Tom Junod wrote years ago on Fred Rogers (he of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood"), Chris Jones' profile of Roger Ebert ranks up there as the best I've read.

Photo: Ethan Hill