(
1932 -
1997)
Columnist for (at various stages of his career) the
Chicago Daily News,
Chicago Sun-Times and finally the
Chicago Tribune. A
Giant. Nobody (with the barely-possible exception of
Studs Terkel) did a better job bringing the atmospheres and attitudes of
Chicago life to
the world. Royko
dominated the journalistic scene in his home town for over 20 years. He was
iconoclastic,
satirical,
witty, a champion of
the common man, and completely
fearless when it came to his choice of
target.
His was a news column for the most part, but he was not above an occasional crusade and he had plenty of colorful characters, fictional and otherwise, who he could turn to for material when the need arose.
At the height of his column's fame it could be read in 615 newspapers. Royko won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for commentary on the basis of his body of work from the previous year, and the Damon Runyon award in 1995.
Newcomers to his work are in for a treat; a good introduction is his posthumous collection, One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko, while Boss, his 1971 unauthorized biography of Richard J. Daley will tell you as much or more about that man's generation of big-city machine politicians as any historical or sociological work.
If you don't know Royko, you don't know Chicago.