PORTLAND – Bill Caldwell, a longtime columnist for the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, died Friday in a Tucson, Ariz., hospital after a long illness. He was 81.

Caldwell retired in 1991 after a 25-year career in which his unabashed love for Maine made him one of the state’s most popular and influential columnists.

“Bill definitely wasn’t a cynic,” said Steve Riley, a former Press Herald and Sunday Telegram editor who edited Caldwell’s work for many years. “He was more a cheerleader for Maine actually. He thought of that as part of his job. Maine was his adopted state; he loved it.”

A slight, wiry man with a grizzled face and white goatee, Caldwell was a commanding presence. He was most at home along Maine’s coast, where he would travel from cove to cove in Steer Clear, his 30-foot converted lobster boat, collecting many of the stories that filled his columns.

Caldwell came to Maine with an unusual background.

A New York native, he had a master’s degree from Cambridge University in England and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He spoke with a slight British accent, which helped give him an aristocratic bearing.

He was wounded in World War II, when he flew 69 bombing missions. He wrote for Time-Life, served in the Eisenhower administration, published a newspaper in England, wrote fiction and admired art.

Caldwell came to work at the Portland newspapers in 1965, after traveling from New York and falling in love with Maine.

He started on the police beat and later became an editorial writer and columnist.

“When people read my columns, I hope they got five or 10 minutes of enjoyment,” Caldwell said upon retiring. “That’s not such a bad thing to be able to give.”

Some of his 3,000 columns were published in books that have titles such as “Enjoying Maine” and “Maine Magic.”

Caldwell moved to Arizona and married Susan Elizabeth Brown, his second wife. He has two grown children.

“Maine is where his heart really is,” his wife said. “He loved the politics, economy, the beauty. And he had a particularly soft spot

for the fishermen.”

Caldwell, who lived in Green Valley, Ariz., wrote his memoirs before he died, and they are being edited, she said.

Caldwell asked to be cremated and have his ashes placed in the ocean off Maine’s coast. That ceremony will take place in June, his wife said.

“We’re going to do it off of Steer Clear,” which is kept in Casco Bay by its current owner.