Yes, that’s Roger Ebert, the film critic. He’s wearing a new silicone prosthetic jaw created for him by doctors at the University of Illinois.
Here’s how Ebert looked last year with his old new face, the one he ended upwith after surgery for cancer in 2006 led to the removal of much of his actual jaw:
The new upgrade fits over the front of Ebert’s face and neck — it’s not the kind of in-the-mouth rubber plate that President Grover Cleveland got after his surgery. If you can’t tell that from looking at the photo, well, credit the prosthetics docs.
As Roger Ebert himself says, it’s designed to “pass muster at a certain distance.” He’ll wear it on his new TV show, as “a pleasant reminder of the person I was for 64 years.”
Roger Ebert is a good egg who has been wonderfully frank about all his faces, old and new. We wish him the very best.
(Photos: RogerEbert.com; FayesVision/WENN.com; Sneak Previews)