John Richard Dodds

John Dodds, a longtime book editor, died of cancer Oct. 9 at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. He was 64 years old and lived in Belvedere, Calif.

Mr. Dodds was editor in chief of Belvedere Books, an imprint he founded in 1983 as part of the Arbor House Publishing Company.

Mr. Dodds had been a senior editor for William Morrow & Company; editor in chief of both Holt, Rhinehart & Winston and New American Library, and general manager of G. P. Putnam's. He was also West Coast editor of Putnam's and of Simon & Schuster.

Among the books he acquired are Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown, and The Moon Is a Balloon and Bring on the Empty Horses, both by David Niven.

Mr. Dodds was married to the actress Vivian Vance, who died in 1979. He is survived by his father, G. Fulton Dodds of Modesto, Calif.

On January 16, 1961, Vance married literary agent, editor, and publisher John Dodds (1922 – October 9, 1986). The couple established their home in Stamford, Connecticut, although they moved to California in 1974; the marriage lasted until Vance's death.