HESS, John L. 1917-2005

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born December 27, 1917, in New York, NY; died of pneumonia January 21, 2005, in New York, NY. Journalist, critic, and author. Hess was well known as both an investigative reporter and food critic. After studying history at the University of Utah, he worked for a time as a farmer and factory worker. His first journalism job was at the Bisbee, Arizona, Daily Review, but he quit because he was only given uninteresting reporting assignments. During World War II, Hess was a seaman in the merchant marine. He returned to journalism after the war, working for such newspapers as the New York Post and New York Daily News, as well as for the Associated Press and United Press news agencies. In 1954 Hess was hired by the New York Times. He remained there for the next twenty-four years, taking on assignments that ranged from working as a reporter in the Paris office, where he began writing about French culture, to editing, to investigative reporting. Among the notable stories he uncovered were corruption in nursing homes, a revelation that earned him the Front Page Award and other honors, and a scheme in which the Metropolitan Museum of Art was secretly selling works of art at private galleries. Hess left the New York Times in 1978 to become a freelance writer, and he also was a broadcaster on New York's WBAI radio for a time. As a food critic, Hess was known for his caustic wit and disdain for American cuisine; he also wrote opinion pieces on a wide variety of other subjects. Hess was the author of The Case for DeGaulle (1968), The Grand Acquisitors (1974), Vanishing France (1975), and, with his wife, Karen Hess, The Taste of America (1977; new edition, 2000).

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New York Times, January 22, 2005, p. A15.