Jerry Bundsen ws the longtime assistant to Herb Caen, who liked to say he had helped the legendary Chronicle columnist through "three wives, 37,000 letters and 936,000 phone calls."

Bundsen was an incomparable news gatherer, raconteur, assistant, call screener and friend to Caen for more than three decades.

"I was Herb's assistant for the first 36 years of the column," Mr. Bundsen wrote in 1988. "During that time I've been kissed, cussed and comped."