Russell Baker (1925–2019)
Author of Growing Up
About the Author
Russell Wayne Baker was born in Loudoun County, Virginia on August 14, 1925. He joined the Navy in 1943 and received pilot training. He never went abroad during World War II and left the service in 1945. He received a bachelor's degree in English from Johns Hopkins University in 1947. After show more graduating, he became a night police reporter for The Baltimore Sun. By 1950, he had become a rewrite man, taking phoned notes from reporters at the scene and writing stories on deadline. He eventually became The Sun's London correspondent and then it's White House correspondent. He was hired by The New York Times in 1954 as a Washington correspondent. He covered the State Department, the White House, and the presidential campaigns of 1956 and 1960. In 1962, he became a columnist for The Times and its news service. He wrote the Observer columns until his retirement in 1998. He received the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary and two George Polk Awards, for commentary in 1978 and career achievement in 1998. His columns were collected in several books including No Cause for Panic, Baker's Dozen, All Things Considered, and Poor Russell's Almanac. After his retirement from The Times, he wrote for The New York Review of Books on politics, history, journalism, and other subjects. A collection of 11 of those essays was published in 2002 under the title Looking Back. His other collections included So This Is Depravity and The Rescue of Miss Yaskell and Other Pipe Dreams. His other books included An American in Washington, the novel Our Next President: The Incredible Story of What Happened in the 1968 Elections, and The Good Times. Growing Up received a Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1983. He was the host of the PBS series Masterpiece Theater from 1993 to 2004. He died from complications of a fall on January 21, 2019 at the age of 93. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: photo by SARAH HUNTINGTON -- www.sarahhuntington.com
Works by Russell Baker
Baker's Dozen A Sampling of Essays by Russell Baker, the "Observer" of The New York Times (1964) 2 copies
A Sinister Metamorphosis 2 copies
Spaced Out 1 copy
Growing Up (Vol.1),The Good Times(Vol.2) — Author — 1 copy
Book of American Humor 1 copy
Associated Works
Minutes of the Lead Pencil Club: Second Thoughts on the Electronic Revolution (1996) — Contributor — 82 copies
Shape Shifters: Fantasy and Science Fiction Tales About Humans Who Can Change Their Shapes (1978) — Contributor — 18 copies
The Way West: How the West Was Lost and Won, 1845-1893 [1995 TV series] (1995) — Narrator — 8 copies
Washington: a reader; the National Capital as seen through the eyes of Thomas Jefferson (1967) 3 copies
The Way West: Ghost Dance 1877-1893 [1995 TV episode] — Narrator — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Baker, Russell Wayne
- Birthdate
- 1925-08-14
- Date of death
- 2019-01-21
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Morrisonville,Virginia, USA
- Place of death
- Leesburg, Virginia, USA
- Places of residence
- Belleville, New Jersey, USA
Baltimore, Maryland, USA - Education
- Johns Hopkins University
- Occupations
- journalist
humorist
essayist
biographer
television host - Organizations
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature ∙ 1984)
The New York Times
PBS - Awards and honors
- Pulitzer Prize (Commentary, 1979)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 22
- Also by
- 24
- Members
- 2,426
- Popularity
- #10,574
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 36
- ISBNs
- 63
- Favorited
- 8