LAX
06-29-2007, 06:34 PM
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=entertainment&id=5435562
New York-WABC, June 29, 2007) - We have sad news to report. Long time Eyewitness News Entertainment reporter Joel Siegel has died after a long bout with cancer.
Joel has been a member of the Eyewitness News team since 1976. His entertainment reports have also been a big part of Good Morning America for years now.
ABC News' Bill Blakemore takes a look at his life.
Surrounded by family and friends, ABC's beaming and insightful movie critic Joel Siegel has died in New York, after a long and remarkably courageous struggle with cancer, at the age of 63.
Both colleagues and fans delighted in his unique way of blending cheerful good humor and piercing critical acumen in reviews that made them instantly clear to anyone. You knew exactly what he thought -- often with the bonus of a good laugh.
His battle with colon cancer was borne with such astonishing courage and humor that he almost tricked his colleagues around the office into forgetting his struggle.
Still at work only two weeks before his death, he had this reporter and several others chortling in an elevator over a line he was about to broadcast about there being so many new penguin movies lately that soon they would outnumber the penguins themselves.
With his trademark style -- a bright but very business-like cheerfulness -- Joel Siegel delivered his swift judgments with a self-confidence and wit so finely phrased it made his reviews a pleasure to listen to just for the quick precision of his language.
"No one had more fun writing about a bad movie than Joel," said Dave Davis, president and general manager of WABC-TV, where Siegel signed on as movie and theater critic in 1976.
Millions learned over the decades that they could trust his judgment and his concise common sense descriptions of movies, as he held forth from the the critic's chair -- which, for the past quarter-century, he did on ABC's "Good Morning America," where he was a central member of its on-air family.
With his unparalleled skill in capturing the sense of a movie in just one or two sentences, he also accomplished something thought impossible:
He conquered the infamous "critics' spoiler problem," managing to give potential moviegoers just as much as they needed to know to decide whether to see it, without spoiling the movie by giving too much away.
And then, in a remarkable departure in the last few years of his life that added great depth to his life's work, he inspired his public with his clear-eyed realism and moral strength by publishing "Lessons for Dylan: From Father to Son."
Written after learning at the age of 57 -- and only two weeks after learning he would soon become a first-time father -- that he had only a 70 percent chance of seeing the child born, the book recorded for his son all he'd want him to know, just in case he wasn't around to tell him in person.
Wonder what kevin smith's reaction will be.
New York-WABC, June 29, 2007) - We have sad news to report. Long time Eyewitness News Entertainment reporter Joel Siegel has died after a long bout with cancer.
Joel has been a member of the Eyewitness News team since 1976. His entertainment reports have also been a big part of Good Morning America for years now.
ABC News' Bill Blakemore takes a look at his life.
Surrounded by family and friends, ABC's beaming and insightful movie critic Joel Siegel has died in New York, after a long and remarkably courageous struggle with cancer, at the age of 63.
Both colleagues and fans delighted in his unique way of blending cheerful good humor and piercing critical acumen in reviews that made them instantly clear to anyone. You knew exactly what he thought -- often with the bonus of a good laugh.
His battle with colon cancer was borne with such astonishing courage and humor that he almost tricked his colleagues around the office into forgetting his struggle.
Still at work only two weeks before his death, he had this reporter and several others chortling in an elevator over a line he was about to broadcast about there being so many new penguin movies lately that soon they would outnumber the penguins themselves.
With his trademark style -- a bright but very business-like cheerfulness -- Joel Siegel delivered his swift judgments with a self-confidence and wit so finely phrased it made his reviews a pleasure to listen to just for the quick precision of his language.
"No one had more fun writing about a bad movie than Joel," said Dave Davis, president and general manager of WABC-TV, where Siegel signed on as movie and theater critic in 1976.
Millions learned over the decades that they could trust his judgment and his concise common sense descriptions of movies, as he held forth from the the critic's chair -- which, for the past quarter-century, he did on ABC's "Good Morning America," where he was a central member of its on-air family.
With his unparalleled skill in capturing the sense of a movie in just one or two sentences, he also accomplished something thought impossible:
He conquered the infamous "critics' spoiler problem," managing to give potential moviegoers just as much as they needed to know to decide whether to see it, without spoiling the movie by giving too much away.
And then, in a remarkable departure in the last few years of his life that added great depth to his life's work, he inspired his public with his clear-eyed realism and moral strength by publishing "Lessons for Dylan: From Father to Son."
Written after learning at the age of 57 -- and only two weeks after learning he would soon become a first-time father -- that he had only a 70 percent chance of seeing the child born, the book recorded for his son all he'd want him to know, just in case he wasn't around to tell him in person.
Wonder what kevin smith's reaction will be.