Herb Caen
Herbert Eugene Caen (/keɪn/; April 3, 1916 – February 1, 1997) was a San Francisco humorist and journalist whose daily column of local goings-on and insider gossip, social and political happenings, and offbeat puns and 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.
Herb Caen | |
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Caen in 1994 | |
| Born | Herbert Eugene Caen April 3, 1916 Sacramento, California, U.S. |
| Died | February 1, 1997 (aged 80) San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Columnist |
"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.