Herb Caen
| Herb Caen | |
|---|---|
"Mr. San Francisco" in his
Chronicle office early in the 1990s |
|
| Born |
Herbert Eugene Caen April 3, 1916 Sacramento, California |
| Died | February 1, 1997 (aged 80) San Francisco, California |
| Occupation | Columnist |
Herbert Eugene "Herb" Caen (April 3, 1916 – February 1, 1997) was a San Francisco journalist whose daily column of local goings-on and insider gossip, social and political happenings, painful puns and offbeat anecdotes—"a continuous love letter to San Francisco"—appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle for almost sixty years (excepting a relatively brief defection to the San Francisco Examiner) and made him a household name throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
"The secret of Caen's success", wrote the editor of a rival publication, was
his outstanding ability to take a wisp of fog, a chance phrase overheard in an elevator, a happy child on a cable car, a deb in a tizzy over a social reversal, a family in distress and give each circumstance the magic touch that makes a reader an understanding eyewitness of the day's happenings.
A special Pulitzer Prize called him the "voice and conscience" of San Francisco."
Caen was born April 3, 1916, in Sacramento, California, although he liked to point out that his parents—
In 1936 Caen began writing a radio programming column for the San Francisco Chronicle. When that column was discontinued in 1938, Caen proposed a daily column on the city itself; "It's News to Me" first appeared July 5. Excepting Caen's four years in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and a 1950–1958 stint at the San Francisco Examiner, his column appeared every day except Saturday until 1990, when it dropped to five times per week—
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