Bob Laurence, who spent 35 years as a television and arts critic for The San Diego Union-Tribune, died on Oct. 12, surrounded by family at his North Park home. He was 84.

From 1970 until his retirement in 2006, Laurence worked at the Union-Tribune as a journalist, first briefly covering news, sports and music before settling into a long and fruitful career as a TV critic.

Longtime colleagues remember Laurence for his witty conversation, zest for life, broad range of interests and depth of knowledge, as well as his exceptional skill as a critic.

“In his writing, Bob had a cynical eye,” remembered Arthur Salm, who served as the books editor and as an arts writer at the Union-Tribune from 1988 to 2008. “He was very incisive, very sharp, very witty and unsparing in his criticism. I think that was his view of life. He looked around and didn’t necessarily like what was going on around him. But he enjoyed himself, and he was having a good time. In a way, because of all that.”

Union-Tribune music critic George Varga was Laurence’s colleague from 1982 to 2006 and remembers him as a dedicated journalist.

“As a teenager, I eagerly read and learned from Bob’s music stories and weekly columns in what was then The San Diego Union,” Varga said. “He couldn’t have been more gracious or welcoming when I became his colleague at the paper.”

“Whether covering music, TV, politics or any subject in between, Bob wrote with consistent skill, insight and wit. He also had the ability to swiftly detect even a hint of hype or B.S., and never hesitated to take aim at it in his articles. Bob was an old-school journalist in the best possible way: tenacious, talented, endlessly curious and always eager to inform and enlighten readers. A single roll of his eyes during our staff meetings could cut to the chase in an instant.”

Longtime features writer and TV-culture critic Karla Peterson, who retired in 2022 after 37 years at the Union-Tribune, said the best way to understand Laurence was to examine the gargantuan Rolodex he bequeathed to her when he retired.

“To flip through it was to see everybody — celebrities, network honchos, local station owners, local sports and weather reporters. He had been in the business such a long time and written about everything and everybody. He kept all that knowledge in that Rolodex and a lot in his head, too. He was a great resource, a very lively conversationalist and a really valuable colleague,” Peterson said.

Laurence wasn’t just an arts and culture expert at the office. He was also an avid consumer of the arts in his personal life, according to the younger of his two sons, Andrew Laurence of Costa Mesa. His father’s tastes included a passion for Humphrey Bogart movies; a voracious appetite for books, particularly Georges Simenon’s Maigret detective novels; an extensive record collection, including his favorite artist Duke Ellington; and a joy for introducing family and friends to favorite restaurants like Crazee Burger in North Park, local arts institutions, theater and concerts.

But Laurence’s most beloved activity was bicycling, a hobby he picked up in his 30s because running was too difficult following a serious car accident as a child. He not only cycled with his two sons and local bike clubs, he also organized his own group cycling events. He led rides from San Francisco to San Diego, cycled 592 miles across Iowa, and he attempted a transcontinental ride but only made it from San Diego to El Paso before turning back.

‘Hit like a thunderbolt’

Robert Pimentel Laurence was born on March 29, 1941, in Acushnet, Mass. When he was 6 years old, he was run over by a truck and sustained major injuries that left him with a slight limp. He grew up in the Bay Area city of Hayward, where he found his vocation in a high school English class, when his entry for a student newspaper story contest was published.

“He later said that seeing  his name in print hit like a thunderbolt. From that moment, he studied and worked to be a newspaper reporter,”  Andrew Laurence wrote in a memorial blog post about his dad.

While studying journalism at UC Berkeley, Laurence worked at the student newspaper, where he met his first wife, Marilyn Grisanti. They married in 1964 and had two sons, Peter and Andrew. After earning degrees in journalism and political science from Bay Area universities, he covered state government for the United Press International wire service in Sacramento, before joining The San Diego Union (which became The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1992 when it merged with its sister paper, The Evening Tribune).

Among Laurence’s most memorable stories over the years were interviews with Walter Cronkite, Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan, whom he nervously flew to Denver to meet. He covered Richard Nixon’s 1972 campaign, wrote sports stories on the San Diego Padres and the Olympics, and wrote articles on deadline about the O.J. Simpson car chase, the 9/11 attacks and the deaths of John Lennon, Princess Diana, and wrote an acclaimed obituary on Frank Sinatra.

In 1999, he wrote a pointed column about radio host Roger Hedgecock, challenging a false claim the former San Diego mayor made about him on-air. Laurence wrote of Hedgecock: “You can’t let somebody say you’re writing lies and putting them in the paper. As Humphrey Bogart said in ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ you’ve got to do something about it. If you don’t, it’s bad for business, bad all around.”

Laurence and his first wife divorced in 1994. Three years later, he married one of his Union-Tribune co-workers, writer-editor Susan White, who was by his side to the end. Longtime colleague Gina Lubrano, who worked at the paper from 1969 to 2006, said it was lovely seeing their romance blossom at the office.

“He loved coffee ice cream, but he loved Susan much more than that. They were really cute. Always holding hands,” Lubrano said.

White describes Laurence as the love of her life, and a great journalist who often helped her with writing catchier headlines, stronger ledes and offering first reads.

“He had the cleverest mind,” she said. “One of the things I’ll miss most is he was my backup on stories. I could give him a story to read and I could tell if it worked or not by his body language. If he started sighing, I knew I had to go back to the drawing table because it wouldn’t hook people.”

In December 2006, Laurence retired, and White left the paper two years later. From 2008 to 2011, they lived in Brooklyn, while she worked as an editor for the Manhattan-based journalism nonprofit ProPublica. An avid walker and explorer, Laurence spent his days traveling around the city and shared his discoveries in emails to families and friends. In 2014, he published the emails in the e-book “Letters from Brooklyn: A Slightly Irregular Memoir of Everyday Life in New York City, With a Tour Guide Thrown In.”

Laurence and White returned to San Diego in 2011 and settled in North Park. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017.

Laurence is survived by his wife, Susan White; sons Peter Laurence of Watsonville and Andrew Laurence of Costa Mesa; and 10 grandchildren. The family is planning a private gathering for family and close friends but no public memorial service is planned.

Originally Published: October 17, 2025 at 5:14 PM PDT