Bill Wallace, former Chronicle reporter, dies of cancer at 69
Bill Wallace died out loud for all to see, spending his final days the way he lived them as the investigative news reporter and crime novelist he was for four decades.
During the past 16 months as he battled cancer, Mr. Wallace posted regular updates of his fight on Facebook, documenting the medications he was taking, the pains of his body as it shut down — and always, his unwavering determination to go down swinging.
Hundreds of people typed encouragement in reply, month after month, calling him everything from an inspiration to a “bona-fide badass.”
Mr. Wallace brought that puncher’s sensibility to virtually every story he wrote until he retired from the newspaper in 2006, whether it was in a series he wrote that year with Sward, Elizabeth Fernandez and Seth Rosenfeld about police violence, a 1999 exploration of the plight of domestic violence victims, or investigations into missteps by government that contributed to the 1991 Oakland hills fire.
Mr. Wallace was also one of the paper’s main “rewrite” reporters, those who take notes from reporters in the field on a breaking story, do their own research and pound out a story — all on a tight deadline.
Rewrite is a tough task in any newsroom, and Mr. Wallace was as renowned at The Chronicle for his specialty at that as he was for his investigations.
The family lived in a trailer that moved with them all over Northern California and Colorado as “Tub” worked construction jobs, eventually settling back in Placerville, where Mr. Wallace went to El Dorado High School.
A voracious reader of everything from science fiction to Steinbeck, Mr. Wallace drummed in a rock band and graduated a year early in 1965, but not before meeting his classmate and future bride, Margot Bliss.
The two led a fierce but unsuccessful attempt to unionize the Guardian, and soon afterward both wound up working at The Chronicle.
“Bill was a real advocate of working people, a classic investigative reporter who had a very fast trigger on injustice,” said Carl Hall, executive officer of the guild.
After retiring, Mr. Wallace taught journalism at California State University East Bay and began writing hard-boiled noir crime novels and short stories under the name William E. Wallace.