Joel Siegel, one of the most notable faces of movie criticism thanks to his position as the lead film critic and entertainment editor for the ABC talk show Good Morning America, died on Friday after a long battle with colon cancer; he was 63. Known for his succinct and common-sensical movie reviews, which featured highly quotable and pun-filled one-liners delivered with a snappy patter, Siegel was one of the first critics to parlay his writing job into a television career, alongside other famed personalities as Gene Shalit, Jeffrey Lyons, and of course, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. Starting out as a radio DJ and newscaster, Siegel first worked for Robert F. Kennedy's campaign as a joke writer, in addition to being a book reviewer for the Los Angeles Times and a freelance critic for other publications. Siegel moved to New York in the 1970s, where he first worked for WABC and then for ABC's fledgling morning show, Good Morning America. He stayed with the show for the rest of his career, and was reportedly at work even two weeks before his death. Though he maintained a mostly sunny aura on air, his career was not without controversy -- most recently, in 2006, he vociferiously left a screening of Clerks II 40 mintues into the film, inciting the wrath of director Kevin Smith. At the age of 54, as he was receiving chemotherapy for colon cancer, Siegel found out he was going to be a father for the first time, and had only a 70% chance of living to see his child. After his son Dylan was born in 1998, Siegel wrote Lessons for Dylan, a book that was part biography and part life lessons and was published in 2003. In addition to his television career, Siegel also received a Tony nomination for writing the 1981 Broadway musical The First. He is survived by his wife, Ena, and their son. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff
