Earl Hamner Jr.

From VARIETY by Carmel Dagan

Earl Hamner Jr., the creator and narrator of CBS’ beloved, long-running family drama “The Waltons,” died Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 92 and had been diagnosed with cancer in June 2014, according to a Facebook post by his daughter.

She wrote: “I want to thank each and every one of you for your prayers, good wishes and kind thoughts – I can assure you that they sustained Dad and helped him to recover enough to proudly witness the final production of ‘Earl Hamner: Storyteller’, become the honored recipient of the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum Humanitarian Award, and accept Media Heritage Founder’s Award. There is not a doubt in my mind that he would not have made it this far without you — and we had the good fortune to keep him in our lives a bit longer despite the odds against him. He never got enough of this great gift of life with which we have all been so deeply blessed — and he hung on as tightly as anyone could with insatiable passion and wonder. My heart is broken as I say, ‘Goodnight, Dad!’ ”

While Hamner became a writer and he was the eldest of eight children from a family in rural Virginia, not all of what appeared in “The Waltons” was entirely autobiographical. Hamner’s father, for example, worked in a coal mine, and his mother’s family came from Italy. Nevertheless his narration invested the series with a sense of earnest, heartfelt truth.

In 1971 he adapted his novel “The Homecoming: A Novel About Spencer’s Mountain” into the script for a TV movie called “The Homecoming: A Christmas Story” that served as the pilot for “The Waltons.” Richard Thomas played John-Boy Walton, and some of the other actors who would become familiar from “The Waltons” appeared in the movie, but Patricia Neal played Olivia Walton.

Hamner was Emmy nominated in 1972 and 1973 for writing “The Homecoming” and for an episode of “The Waltons.”

He also created the series “Apple’s Way” (1974-75) and “Boone” (1983-84), both of which had brief runs.

His film credits included adapting E.B. White’s novel “Charlotte’s Web” for the 1973 animated film of the same name, and he adapted the 1974 film “Where the Lilies Bloom” (1974).

Earl Henry Hamner Jr. was born in Schuyler, Virginia.

He got his start as a writer in television in the 1950s, penning episodes of “The Kate Smith Hour” and “The United States Steel Hour.”

Hamner wrote the novel upon which the Delmer Daves-directed 1963 film “Spencer’s Mountain” was based. The family drama starred Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara, and though the novel was set in Virginia during the Depression among a family much like the Waltons, this movie shifted the large clan to Wyoming.

As unlikely as it may sound, Hamner scripted a 1963 film called “Palm Springs Weekend,” starring Troy Donahue and Connie Stevens; the tagline was “It’s where the boys are and the girls are… that swingin’ vacation weekend when American youth descends on America’s swankiest playground!”

Hamner also penned eight episodes of “The Twilight Zone,” six episodes of “Gentle Ben” and four episodes of “Nanny and the Professor.”

• Reference: Ancestry Genealogy - SmartCopy: Apr 13 2020, 13:46:19 UTC

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https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Hamner_Earl_Jr_1923-

Earl Hamner Jr. was a writer of novels, television shows, and movies, most notably the popular semiautobiographical television series The Waltons (1972–1981). Born in Nelson County, Hamner served in the Army during World War II (1939–1945) before attending Northwestern University and the University of Cincinnati. He then worked in radio and televion, writing scripts for The Twilight Zone and novels based on his Virginia upbringing. Hamner's hardscrabble experiences growing up in a large family in depression-era Schuyler informed his 1961 novel Spencer's Mountain, and its film adaptation starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara. In 1972 it was adapted for television as The Waltons, each episode of which famously ended with family members wishing one another goodnight. Hamner also created the series Falcon Crest, which ran from 1981 to 1990. He died in Los Angeles in 2016.

Early Years Hamner was born on July 10, 1923, in Nelson County. His parents, Doris Giannini Hamner and Earl Henry Hamner, had seven more children after him, all redheads: Clifton, Marion, Audrey, Paul, Willard, James, and Nancy. Hamner's father worked in a soapstone mill until it closed in the 1930s, after which he was hired at the DuPont chemical plant in Waynesboro. Although the family was quite poor, Hamner describes it as having been a happy, close-knit group.

Hamner was six years old when he published his first poem on the Children's Page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. After graduating from Schuyler High School in 1940, he received a scholarship to the University of Richmond but didn't complete his studies before joining the Army in 1943. After completing his military service during World War II, Hamner returned to Virginia, landing a job with WMBG, a country music radio station in Richmond. He soon left, however, first to attend Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and then the University of Cincinnati, where he studied radio. Hamner graduated in 1948 and wrote briefly for radio station WLW in Cincinnati before moving to New York in 1949. His replacement at WLW was Rod Serling, who would go on to create television's The Twilight Zone. During this time Hamner began writing his first novel, Fifty Roads to Town (1953), about a young woman living in the Virginia mountains who yearns to speak in tongues. In contrast to the feel-good The Waltons, Fifty Roads to Town portrays a darker, more brooding world.

New York to Hollywood to Walton Mountain While working for NBC radio in New York, Hamner began to transition to television, writing for The Today Show, The United States Steel Hour, and The Kate Smith Show. He moved to Hollywood in 1961 and got his first big break by selling two scripts to Serling's The Twilight Zone. He wrote eight scripts altogether for the show, while also contributing to The Wagon Train, The Invaders, and It's a Man's World. Hamner wrote Heidi, the made-for-television movie that, when broadcast in November 1968, famously preempted the final few seconds of a live broadcast of a close professional football game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. The Oakland Raiders won the game and Hamner won a Writer's Guild award for his script.

Hamner's second novel, Spencer's Mountain, eventually led to The Waltons. The Spencers represented an idealized version of his own family, and Hamner's heartwarming approach to home and family set the tone for his later work. The Homecoming (1970), another novel about the Spencer family based loosely on Hamner's childhood memories of Christmas in Waynesboro, was adapted by CBS into a special that aired in 1971. On CBS, however, the Spencers became the Waltons, and after a successful broadcast, Hamner was invited to develop a series.

Narrated by Hamner himself, the series featured the Waltons of fictional Walton's Mountain, Virginia, and was told through the eyes of John-Boy, an aspiring writer. Running for nine seasons, the show became an icon of 1970s television and won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series in 1973. It also spawned twenty years' worth of holiday and reunion specials.

Later Years

Title: Charles Shields, Donna Lucey, and Earl Hamner, Jr. Discuss Their Books Play Audio

Charles Shields, Donna Lucey, and Earl Hamner, Jr. Discuss Their Books

Hamner continued to write novels and films, some of them capitalizing on the thematic expectations of The Waltons. His next major television series, however, was a departure. Falcon Crest (1981–1990), starring Jane Wyman as the matriarch of a California wine family, was as full of soap-opera style lust, jealousy, and betrayal as The Waltons was not.

Besides his most famous television work, Hamner was the author of the novel You Can't Get There From Here (1965), about a boy's daylong search for his father in Manhattan, as well as the screenplay for a teen vacation film starring Troy Donahue and Stefanie Powers, Palm Springs Weekend (1963). He also wrote film versions of Charlotte's Web (1973) and Lassie (1978).

Hamner died in Los Angeles on March 24, 2016.

Major Works

https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Hamner_Earl_Jr_1923-#its4

Time Line

July 10, 1923 - Earl Hamner Jr. is born in Nelson County.

1940 - Earl Hamner Jr. graduates from high school and receives a scholarship to the University of Richmond.

1943 - Earl Hamner Jr. leaves the University of Richmond to join the Army.

1948 - Earl Hamner Jr. graduates from the University of Cincinnati.

1949 - Earl Hamner Jr. moves to New York.

1953 - Earl Hamner Jr.'s first novel, Fifty Roads to Town, is published.

1961 - Earl Hamner Jr.'s novel Spencer's Mountain, upon which the popular television series The Waltons would be based, is published.

1961 - Earl Hamner Jr. moves to Hollywood and sells two scripts to The Twilight Zone.

1973 - Earl Hamner Jr. wins an Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for his work on The Waltons.

March 24, 2016 - Earl Hamner Jr. dies in Los Angeles.