‘Caine Mutiny’ Author, Former Georgetowner Herman Wouk Turns 100
By • June 11, 2015 0 1323
Who is your favorite hero of fiction? Don Quixote. Who are your heroes in real life? Those who serve over in Afghanistan, or six months underwater in nuclear subs.
So answered Pulitzer Prize-winning author Herman Wouk, then 97, in the October 2012 Vanity Fair. The writer of “The Caine Mutiny,” “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance” – the first made into a classic Humphrey Bogart film, the others into television miniseries – turned 100 years old May 27.
Almost half a century ago, a profile in the Nov. 26, 1971, issue of Life magazine reported, “Wouk lives in chandeliered elegance in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., in an 1815 townhouse.” He and his wife Betty along with their sons moved to 3255 N St. NW in 1964.
When the house was renovated about five years ago, architect Simon Jacobsen discovered a small, secret room along with an interesting movie memento: steel balls used as stress-relievers by the cross-examined Commander Queeg, played by actor Humphrey Bogart, in “The Caine Mutiny,” made from Wouk’s novel. There was also a note, which read, “To Herman from Bogie.”
The house, on the corner of N and Potomac Streets, is now owned by dermatologist Tina Alster, M.D., and her husband and political consultant, Ambassador Paul Frazer, who put it on the market several months ago.
The son of immigrants from Minsk, Wouk, the future hewer of bulky wartime narratives graduated from Columbia University and wrote comedy sketches for Fred Allen’s radio show. His World War II service in the Navy inspired “The Caine Mutiny,” which was published in 1951. He moved to Washington, partly to be near the National Archives and the Library of Congress.
In 2000, the Library of Congress gave him its Living Legend medal and, eight years later, the first Library of Congress Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Writing of Fiction. At that time, he donated his journals, more than 100 volumes, to the library, retaining a copy for his own research.
Wouk’s wife, Betty, who had served on the board of directors of the Georgetowner Newspaper, died in 2011.
Wouk now lives in Palm Springs, Calif. His new memoir, “Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-Year-Old Author,” will appear in December.
