SAN FRANCISCO COLUMNIST HERB CAEN.

Byline: Karyn Hunt Associated Press 

Herb Caen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who for six decades chronicled his beloved city with wit, wisdom and gossip - and who himself became an enduring symbol of its charm - died Saturday. He was 80.

Diagnosed with inoperable cancer in April 1996, Caen wrote sporadically to the end despite his failing health. His wife, Ann, was at his side when he died at Pacific Medical Center.

``I've lost a friend, San Francisco has lost its most passionate lover, and the world has lost a fine journalist,'' said former CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite, who had known Caen since World War II.

``We are deeply saddened by Herb's death,'' San Francisco Chronicle Editor Bill German said.

Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. ordered the city's flags flown at half-staff in honor of the man with whom he ate lunch nearly every Friday for decades.

``He was an extraordinary human being,'' Brown said. ``He was so interested in life and so well-informed and so inquisitive about everything and so ordinary in many respects. He was constantly in pursuit of the truth. He loved to tell the story.''

Caen's daily collection of local news, gossip, jokes and one-liners amused millions of readers across Northern California as they sat down to their first cup of coffee each morning.

But Caen - pronounced ``cane'' - was perhaps best known for his wistful paeans to his ``Baghdad by the Bay.''

``There is no way to give up on San Francisco, once you have fallen under its spell,'' he said in his book ``One Man's San Francisco.'' He wrote of moments ``when the wind and the light are right, and the air smells ocean-clean, and a white ship is emerging from the Golden Gate mist into the Bay, and the towers are reflecting the sun's last rays.''

``I hadn't realized the depth of the narcissism in this city,'' Caen once said. ``To this day, I think people aren't all that crazy about the gossip or the political stuff. They like the sentimental stuff the best.''

Caen also wrote magazine articles and 12 books about the city, from ``Baghdad by the Bay,'' to ``Don't Call It Frisco.'' The nickname was a pet peeve.

His pithy one-liners made him one of the nation's most-quoted columnists in Reader's Digest, and he was credited with coining the term ``beatnik.''

He often took on crusades, including his effort in the late '40s and early '50s to save the cable cars, which became the city's biggest tourist attraction. He also helped stop a proposed freeway through scenic Golden Gate Park.

``He owned the city. Well, he didn't own it, but he absolutely loved where he was, and it was reflected in his daily life,'' said Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author Jimmy Breslin.

In Washington, President Clinton said: ``If we listen carefully on those cool mornings when the fog has boiled through the Golden Gate, out beyond the clattering of cables underfoot and the low moan of the horn at Alcatraz, maybe we will still hear Herb Caen's wonderful, witty, irrepressible voice.''

Caen's May 1996 column, announcing his battle with cancer, was laced with his typical mixture of humor and sentiment.

``In a lightning flash, I passed from the land of the well to the world of the unwell, where I will now dwell for what I hope is a long time.''

Later, he said, ``I do wish I could have told you that my long silences were indeed due to The World's Greatest Hangover.''

Undergoing chemotherapy, he wrote, ``My energy level drops at times to the bottom of the bay, where I can trade winks with the strange one-eyed fish.''

That same month, he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for his ``extraordinary and continuing contribution as a voice and a conscience of his city.''

``I thought it was April Fools' Day when somebody called to tell me,'' he said. ``It's a thrill. I feel a little dizzy.''

Caen was just 22 when the column began July 5, 1938. He styled himself after Walter Winchell, filling the space with short, snappy bits designed to stimulate conversation over the office water cooler.

A mention in his column became a badge of honor for ``real San Franciscans,'' and newcomers scanned it for the sign that they had truly arrived. At the same time, he didn't flinch at using his wicked wit to skewer the city's power brokers.

In his later years, detractors said he was out of touch with the city and complained that he wrote too much about the socialites who became his friends. His jokes were sometimes denigrating to women and minorities, and he was accused - wrongly, he said - of using his stature to get free meals and drinks.

But few writers took such pains to know their topic. Caen spent his evenings attending parties, making the rounds of the bars and going to theater openings and opera performances in a never-ending search for items to fill the space.

No matter how tired, he still got to work the next morning at 9:30, checking out the papers and looking through the messages from his army of tipsters.

By 1 p.m., he emerged from his locked office, finished column in hand - two or three scoops, a few topical jokes and reflections on life in the city - all typed on an old manual typewriter. He never learned to use a computer.

The only pause in Caen's career as a columnist came in 1942, when he joined the Army during World War II. He worked in communications and as an aerial photo reconnaissance analyst in England and France.

In 1950, he defected to the rival San Francisco Examiner after the publisher offered to triple his salary. He returned to the Chronicle in 1958.

Around the time he turned 80, Caen married his fourth wife, longtime companion Ann Moller. And San Franciscans honored Caen by renaming a street Herb Caen Way and turning out by the thousands to celebrate Herb Caen Day.

``I hope I go to heaven, and when I do, I'm going to do what every San Franciscan does when he gets there,'' he told the crowd. ``He looks around and says: `It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco.' ''

CAPTION(S):

Photo: Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Herb Caen died Saturday of c ancer.

Associated Press