Respected film critic Roger Ebert died on Thursday at the age of 70 after battling cancer.

Ebert was a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic who wrote for The Chicago Sun-Times for over 45 years. In 1975 he was the first film critic to with the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, according to the Chicago Tribune.

He is survived by his wife, Charlie "Chaz" Hammel-Smith, who he married in 1993. In his 2011 autobiograohy, Life Itself: A Memoir, he said of his wife, "My life as an independent adult began after I met Chaz."

He also wrote about how she took care of him when he was sick: "I was very sick. ... This woman never lost her love, and when it was necessary she forced me to want to live. ... Her love was like a wind pushing me from the grave."

Ebert was first diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002, according to Moviefone. When his cancer came back he announced that he would take a leave of presence on his famous blog, rogerebert.com.

"It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital," he wrote at the time. "So on bad days I may write about the vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness."