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Russell Baker, the Pulitzer Prize winning writer who penned thousands of columns for 

, and hosted the PBS television program "Masterpiece Theatre," died Monday at his home in Leesburg, Va. He was 93.
Baker got his start as a news reporter with the 

, but became known for his "Observer" column in the 

, where he commented on modern life with unmistakable whimsy. Though often pegged to the specifics of the time, many of his observations are just as relevant today as they were when published decades ago. A family member tells NPR that Baker was "a beautiful man."
"We couldn't have asked for a better father," said his son, Allen Baker, according to the 

. "He was a tender and loving man to his family. ... He was just a Regular Joe with an extraordinary job." His son says Baker died after complications from a fall.



When Baker moved from Washington to New York in 1974, the scope of his column expanded, the 

. At first political, it soon grew to encompass all aspects of day-to-day life. Baker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1979. It was the first Pulitzer for commentary awarded to a humorist, the 

highlights one column about Americans who hazard to live to old age, and how much those who achieved seniority could actually financially afford it. "Stylistically, the 'Observer' examined the American scene with plain phrases that echoed Twain as they skewered the pompous. But his voice could be haunting," the 

 on old people navigating a supermarket:



Baker was born into humble circumstances in Loudoun County, Va. in 1925. His father died from a diabetic coma when he was 5. During the Depression, Baker sold magazines door-to-door. He first entertained the idea of becoming a writer as a child, he said in his 1983 memoir, "

," which won the Pulitzer Prize for best biography. Baker earned a scholarship to Johns Hopkins University, enlisted as a Navy pilot during World War II (but was never deployed overseas), and finished his degree after the war, the 

, where he started as a police reporter before working his way up within five years to become London correspondent. After working as a White House reporter for the 

 Washington Bureau where he covered the White House, Congress, and presidential campaigns.


in 1962 and wrote nearly 5,000 "Observer" columns until his last one ran in 1998. Baker's writing "matured into literature" when he moved to New York, the 

said in its obituary, demonstrating "an owlish wit, sometimes surreal, often absurdist, usually scouring dark corridors of paradox, always carried off with a subtext of good sense."
Baker once said he never intended to be called a humorist; his goal as a columnist was to make politics and diplomacy accessible through easy to understand language, 

. "Well, as I soon discovered, in those days if you wrote short sentences and plain English in the 

, everybody naturally assumed you were being funny," he said.


Baker was an astute observer of the world, aware that what may seem like modern problems have actually been bedeviling humanity since humanity began.


"We all come from the past," he wrote in his 

, "and children ought to know what it was that went into their making, to know that life is a braided cord of humanity stretching up from time long gone, and that it cannot be defined by the span of a single journey from diaper to shroud."  Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Baker made his name as a columnist for The New York Times, where he wrote thousands of columns over more than 30 years. He won one Pulitzer Prize for commentary, and another for his autobiography.

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Russell Baker dies at 93

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