Russell Baker, whose droll observations on Washington and the world were a fixture in The New York Times for 36 years, and who won a large second following as the longtime host of PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre," has died, The Times confirmed Tuesday.
Baker, who was 93, died Monday at his home in Leesburg, Virginia, a suburb of Washington. His death was announced Tuesday by The Inquirer and Mirror newspaper in Nantucket, Connecticut, where Baker had a summer home, and confirmed by The Times on Tuesday night.
The cause of death was wasn't reported, but Baker had recently suffered a fall, his son Allen told The Sun newspaper of Baltimore, where Baker grew up and started his newspaper career in 1947.
Baker won two Pulitzer Prizes during a career that inspired literary critics to rank him among the finest and most important essayists of the 20th century.
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