Topic: Joel Siegel

Joel Siegel (July 7, 1943 – June 29, 2007) was an American film critic for the ABC morning news show Good Morning America for over 25 years. Born to a Jewish family, and raised in Los Angeles, California, he graduated cum laude from UCLA. During college, he worked to register black voters in Georgia, and he spoke frequently of having met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He also worked as a joke writer for Senator Robert F. Kennedy and was at the Ambassador Hotel the night the senator was assassinated.

Siegel died of complications from colon cancer on June 29, 2007, in New York.

Siegel worked at a range of jobs throughout the 1960s, often concentrating on the civil rights movement. In the late '60s, before moving to New York, he worked as an advertising agency copywriter and producer. While working in advertising for Carson/Roberts Advertising, he invented and named ice cream flavors for Baskin-Robbins. These flavors were: German Chocolate Cake; Peaches & Cream; Pralines & Cream; Blueberry Cheesecake; Strawberry Cheesecake; Green Cheesecake; Red, White and Blueberry; and Chilly Burgers.