Richard Roeper

Roeper was born in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in south suburban Dolton, Illinois and attended Thornridge High School, before graduating from Illinois State University in 1982 with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

Roeper began working as a columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times in 1987. The topics of his columns ranged from politics to media to entertainment.

He has also written seven books on topics ranging from movies to urban legends to conspiracy theories to the Chicago White Sox. In 2009, Roeper appeared on Howard Stern's show and said he had written a book on gambling, entitled Bet the House,[5] which was released in the first quarter of 2010.

Roeper was a radio host on WLS AM 890 in Chicago. He also hosted shows on WLUP-FM, WLS-FM, and WMVP-AM in Chicago. He won three Emmy awards for his news commentaries on Fox in the 1990s and was the film critic for CBS in Chicago for three years in the early 2000s. He won the National Headliner Award as the top newspaper columnist in the country in 1992 and has been voted the best columnist in Illinois by the Associated Press on numerous occasions.

His columns have been syndicated by The New York Times to publications throughout the world. Roeper has written for a number of magazines, including Esquire, Spy, TV Guide, Playboy, Maxim, and Entertainment Weekly. He was once named one of People magazine's most eligible bachelors.[6]

Roeper was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show, Live with Regis and Kelly, The O'Reilly Factor, and countless other national programs. He also hosted Starz Inside, a monthly documentary series that aired on the Starz network. Roeper appeared on the first episode of the fifth season of Entourage, where he reviewed a fake movie titled Medellin with Michael Phillips on At the Movies. In April 2008, Roeper was the central figure on an episode of Top Chef, where contestants served up movie-themed dishes to Roeper and his friends (including Aisha Tyler).

In February 2009, Roeper launched his own website, which features movie reviews, blog entries, photos, and Twitter posts. In December 2009, he launched a video section, which featured on-camera reviews of movies. The video segments were originally produced in partnership with the Starz premium cable channel. Roeper announced that the reviews would appear first on his site, then on the Starz channel.

In December 2009, it was reported that Roeper had signed with ReelzChannel to be a regular contributor.[7] Beginning in December 2010, Roeper began producing video reviews for ReelzChannel. He stopped reviewing movies for ReelzChannel in February 2015; his final review was for the Jude Law disaster film Black Sea.

In October 2015, he joined the cast of the Fox Chicago morning TV show.[8] He continues to review movies for the Chicago Sun-Times, and he also publishes videos of his reviews to YouTube. Roeper signed off from Fox Chicago's morning TV on October 18, 2017.[4]

Roeper was suspended from the Sun-Times on January 29, 2018, pending an investigation into allegations that he had purchased Twitter followers.[9] On February 2, the Sun-Times released a statement stating that their investigation did find that Roeper purchased over 25,000 fake followers. He was later reinstated by the paper, though he was required to begin using a new account on which he was explicitly disallowed from buying followers.[1]

After Gene Siskel of Siskel & Ebert died on Saturday, February 20, 1999, Roger Ebert co-hosted the show with nearly 30 guest critics. After ten appearances on the program, Roeper was offered the opportunity to permanently co-host the popular film review show with Ebert. The series was renamed Ebert & Roeper and the Movies in 2000. The title was shortened to Ebert & Roeper in 2002.

Beginning in August 2006, while his co-host Roger Ebert was recovering from cancer surgery, Roeper was joined by numerous guest critics, including Clerks director Kevin Smith, The Tonight Show host Jay Leno, and singer-songwriter John Mellencamp. On Sunday, July 20, 2008, Roeper announced that he was leaving the show in mid-August and would return with a new show later in the year.[10] However, plans for a new program starring Roeper failed to materialize.

Between 2009 and late 2010, Roeper contributed video reviews to Starz. In December 2010, he moved to ReelzChannel, where he contributed a segment titled Richard Roeper's Reviews every weekday at 5:00 PM ET. Roeper remained with the network until early 2015. In January 2013, Roeper began contributing film reviews to RogerEbert.com. In August 2014, Roeper became first-string film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times, where he made his debut reviewing Guardians of the Galaxy.

• He Rents, She Rents: The Ultimate Guide to the Best Women's Films and Guy Movies, with Laurie Viera (1999)
• Hollywood Urban Legends: The Truth Behind All Those Delightfully Persistent Myths of Films, Television, and Music (2001)
• Urban Legends: The Truth Behind All Those Deliciously Entertaining Myths That Are Absolutely, Positively, 100% Not True (2001)
• Ten Sure Signs a Movie Character is Doomed, and Other Surprising Movie Lists (2003)
• Schlock Value: Hollywood At Its Worst (2005)
• Sox and the City: A Fan's Love Affair with the White Sox from the Heartbreak of '67 to the Wizards of Oz (2006)
• Debunked!: Conspiracy Theories, Urban Legends, and Evil Plots of the 21st Century (2008)
• Bet the House: How I Gambled Over a Grand a Day for 30 Days on Sports, Poker, and Games of Chance (2010)[5]

• Official website
• Biography from TV Tome
• Richard Roeper at IMDb