My obituary of the journalist Richard Ben Cramer appeared in the Independent on 30 March, but I somehow missed it at the time. You can link to it here, but because there were a few literals in article, including my listing only five of the six candidates profiled in What It Takes (I left out Dick Gephardt, of course), I've reprinted it below with a few small corrections. Sadly, it appears that piece may be the last I do for the Indy, at least for some time...I've always appreciated them for their willingness to both cover some unusual people and allow me to present their obits while assuming the audience will understand the usually American context.I've been reading What It Takes lately--it stands up superbly after 25 years, particularly because of its sympathy, its non-judgemental understanding--his one paragraph take on the essential difference between George Bush and Ronald Reagan is alone worth the price of admission. It was also fun to recall that Cramer had wanted to include one more of the candidates in 1988, Jesse Jackson, but couldn't because alone of the contenders, Jackson would not grant him the necessary access. What It Takes spawned many imitators, but by then few candidates would allow the same openess, but mostly because none of those who followed could actually do what Cramer was able to do so well...understand people, and put that understanding down on paper. Were I writing the obit again, I would probably compare it more to The Right Stuff--but Cramer has a sharper, less romantic, conception of the American drive for success than Wolfe. Anyway, here's the piece:
Richard Ben Cramer: Journalist noted for his empathy with his subjects
The New Journalism opened the floodgates for writers of non-fiction
to use the materials of fiction. When Richard Ben Cramer produced his
landmark study of the 1988 US presidential campaign, What It Takes,
it was criticised widely for its perceived lack of seriousness.
Reviewers seemed to expect Cramer's 1,000 page study of the six
contenders, George Bush, Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart, Dick Gephardt, and Joe
Biden, to creak under its accumulated gravitas. 
Instead they got Tom
Wolfe typography and bursts of wild metaphor they'd expect from Hunter S
Thompson, blinding them to the fact that, with his energy and empathy,
Cramer was able to explore deeply these lives, and uncover the dilemma
faced by all of them: the price they needed to pay to achieve their
ultimate goal. Today, What It Takes is considered a classic.
Instead they got Tom
Wolfe typography and bursts of wild metaphor they'd expect from Hunter S
Thompson, blinding them to the fact that, with his energy and empathy,
Cramer was able to explore deeply these lives, and uncover the dilemma
faced by all of them: the price they needed to pay to achieve their
ultimate goal. Today, What It Takes is considered a classic.
Its theme was something Cramer has addressed before, in the showcase
article from the famed June 1986 special "The American Man: 1946-86"
issue of Esquire. Cramer's profile of the irascible and
notoriously private baseball star Ted Williams was both revealing and
endearing. Half of Williams' quotes appeared in all capital letters,
emphasising his awkward bellow. Asked how old he was, Williams answered
'WELL HOW DO I LOOK?.. HUH? WHAT DO YOU THINK OF TED WILLIAMS NOW?' That
provided the story its title, but what made it was Cramer's realisation
that what drove Williams' insecurity was the other side of his drive to
be the greatest hitter of all time, the best sport fisherman, the top
fighter pilot. It was deeply American, and it became Cramer's theme: "He
wanted fame, and wanted it with a pure, hot eagerness that would have
been embarrassing in a smaller man. But he could not stand celebrity.
This is a bitch of a line to draw in America's dust."
His own lack of success in sport drove Cramer to journalism. Born in Rochester, New York in 1950, he joined his high school newspaper after being cut from the baseball team. He edited the paper at Johns Hopkins University, where he took his degree in 1971. He fell in love with Baltimore, but after failing to land a job with the Baltimore Sun he took an MA at New York's Columbia School of Journalism, before getting hired on the second attempt by the Sun in 1973. In 1976 he left for the Philadelphia Inquirer, who sent him to Israel, where his reporting from the Middle East won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979.
He went freelance and moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore, writing for Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated as well as Esquire. His wife Carolyn White was a talented editor who, while he worked on What It Takes, gave up her own work to, in the words of one friend, 'become his Maxwell Perkins'. It took Cramer six years to research and write the book; a heavy smoker and prodigious coffee-drinker, he suffered health setbacks, including phlebitis, pleurisy, and Bell's palsy, before finishing it. It was published to coincide with the 1992 elections; the four-year delay was a factor in its cool reception.
Cramer wrote the copy for The Seasons Of The Kid (1991), a photo-book about Williams based on his article, and with The Choice (1992) began writing and narrating documentaries for America's Public Boradcasting System, PBS. The Battle For Citizen Kane (1995), made for their American Experience series, was nominated for an Academy Award. He expanded part of
What It Takes into a 1995 biography of Bob Dole, and in 2001 returned to his theme of the demands of fame with Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life, the first warts-and-all portrait of another American baseball icon.
Cramer returned to the Middle East with How Israel Lost: Four Questions (2004), whose thesis, that Israel was a victim of its own victories, and whose straightforward answers to its four questions, provoked some predictably contentious reviews. His final book, in 2011, was a return to his 1986 article, but by this time the title, What Do You Think Of Ted Williams Now, became an invitation to reflect on time passed.
Cramer died of lung cancer. He is survived by his and White's daughter Ruby, and by his second wife Joan. In a tribute, Vice President Joe Biden recalled reading about himself in Cramer's book: "It is a powerful thing to read a book someone has written about you, and to find both the observations and criticisms so sharp and insightful that you learn something new and meaningful about yourself. That was my experience with Richard."
Richard Ben Cramer, journalist: born Rochester, New York 12 June 1950 died Baltimore 7 January 2013.
His own lack of success in sport drove Cramer to journalism. Born in Rochester, New York in 1950, he joined his high school newspaper after being cut from the baseball team. He edited the paper at Johns Hopkins University, where he took his degree in 1971. He fell in love with Baltimore, but after failing to land a job with the Baltimore Sun he took an MA at New York's Columbia School of Journalism, before getting hired on the second attempt by the Sun in 1973. In 1976 he left for the Philadelphia Inquirer, who sent him to Israel, where his reporting from the Middle East won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979.
He went freelance and moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore, writing for Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated as well as Esquire. His wife Carolyn White was a talented editor who, while he worked on What It Takes, gave up her own work to, in the words of one friend, 'become his Maxwell Perkins'. It took Cramer six years to research and write the book; a heavy smoker and prodigious coffee-drinker, he suffered health setbacks, including phlebitis, pleurisy, and Bell's palsy, before finishing it. It was published to coincide with the 1992 elections; the four-year delay was a factor in its cool reception.
Cramer wrote the copy for The Seasons Of The Kid (1991), a photo-book about Williams based on his article, and with The Choice (1992) began writing and narrating documentaries for America's Public Boradcasting System, PBS. The Battle For Citizen Kane (1995), made for their American Experience series, was nominated for an Academy Award. He expanded part of
What It Takes into a 1995 biography of Bob Dole, and in 2001 returned to his theme of the demands of fame with Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life, the first warts-and-all portrait of another American baseball icon.Cramer returned to the Middle East with How Israel Lost: Four Questions (2004), whose thesis, that Israel was a victim of its own victories, and whose straightforward answers to its four questions, provoked some predictably contentious reviews. His final book, in 2011, was a return to his 1986 article, but by this time the title, What Do You Think Of Ted Williams Now, became an invitation to reflect on time passed.
Cramer died of lung cancer. He is survived by his and White's daughter Ruby, and by his second wife Joan. In a tribute, Vice President Joe Biden recalled reading about himself in Cramer's book: "It is a powerful thing to read a book someone has written about you, and to find both the observations and criticisms so sharp and insightful that you learn something new and meaningful about yourself. That was my experience with Richard."
Richard Ben Cramer, journalist: born Rochester, New York 12 June 1950 died Baltimore 7 January 2013.
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