Movie critic Roger Ebert rushed into surgery!

[Brian Damage]

CHICAGO - Film critic Roger Ebert, who has battled cancer in recent years, was in serious but stable condition Sunday following an emergency operation to repair complications from a previous cancer surgery.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper — co-host of the “Ebert and Roeper” movie review show — told the paper that Ebert’s vital signs appeared to be good after the hours-long operation.

Ebert’s family told WLS-TV, one of his employers, that they expected him to make a full recovery.

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Ebert had surgery June 16 to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland. He told Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder at the time that the condition was not life threatening and he expected to make a full recovery.

About 8 p.m. Saturday, a blood vessel burst near the site of the operation, the Sun-Times reported Sunday on its Web site. A Northwestern Memorial Hospital spokeswoman declined to comment Sunday afternoon.

The 64-year-old has undergone cancer surgery three times before — once in 2002 to remove a malignant tumor on his thyroid gland and twice on his salivary gland the next year.

Ebert has been a film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975, the same year he teamed up with Gene Siskel of the rival Chicago Tribune to launch their movie-review show. Siskel died in 1999.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13676038/