Robert Richard Timberg was born in Miami Beach, Florida on June 16, 1940. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1964. He served with the First Marine Division in Vietnam starting in 1966. At the age of 26, an explosion destroyed his armored personnel carrier and disfigured his face. He underwent 35 reconstructive operations. This experience was recounted in his memoir Blue-Eyed Boy.
After his discharge from the Marines, he received a master's degree in journalism from Stanford University in 1969. He began his journalism career at The Evening Capital in Annapolis before joining The Baltimore Evening Sun in 1973. After studying at Harvard under a Nieman fellowship, he returned to cover Congress for The Sun. He retired in 2005 as deputy Washington bureau chief. He wrote several books during his lifetime including The Nightingale's Song. He died of respiratory failure on September 6, 2016 at the age of 76.
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