Earl Hamner Jr.

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Earl Henry Hamner Jr. (July 10, 1923 – March 24, 2016) was an American television writer and producer best known for his work on the long-running television show The Waltons and Falcon Crest in the 1970s and 1980s.

Spencer's Mountain was his own creation and served as the basis for both the film of the same name and the television show The Waltons, in which he provided voice-over narration.

Early life

Hamner was born in Schuyler, Virginia, on July 10, 1923, to Doris Marion (née Giannini) and Earl Henry Hamner Sr. Hamner, the oldest of eight children, had four brothers and three sisters. The other boys, from youngest to next, were James Edmund, Willard Harold, Paul Louis, and Clifton Anderson. Nancy Alice, Audrey Jane, and Marion Lee were the girls, ranging from youngest to senior.

The Gianninis, Hamner's mother, immigrated to the United States in the 1700s from Lucca, Italy. His father's family came from Wales to Virginia. The Hamners were tobacco farmers near James River, Virginia, until they moved to Schuyler, which is on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains, dating back to the 1920s.

Schuyler was a business town based on soapstone mining by New Alberene Stone, but the town was particularly hard by the Great Depression when the company and its mines closed. Hamner's father worked in the mines from the time his eldest son was born until the company's closing. Earl Sr. could only find jobs as a machinist at the DuPont plant in Waynesboro, Virginia, about 30 miles away, after losing his career. Earl Sr. stayed at a boarding house in Waynesboro during the week and returned home to Schuyler and his family on the weekend due to the distance between home and work. Hamner's father will walk six miles to his family's house in Waynesboro, with another stop along the way. Hamner's 1933 walk on a snowy Christmas Eve inspired The Homecoming, a 1970 book that became a Christmas special and a source for The Waltons. The family (all except Earl Sr.) attended a small whiteboard church named Schuyler Baptist Church during Earl's childhood years. In April 2014, the church held a special service to honor Earl Hamner, Storyteller.

Hamner was drafted into the Army during World War II while on a scholarship at the University of Richmond in his sophomore year. He was first taught how to defuse landmines and then moved to the Quartermaster Corps because he could type. After the Normandy invasion, he was in France. He then enrolled Northwestern University and later graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in broadcast communications.

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Career

Hamner wrote "Hit and Run," an episode of the legal drama Justice in 1954. In the 1964 "You Drive" episode of The Twilight Zone, he repeated the theme.

Hamner appeared in eight episodes of The Twilight Zone in the early 1960s. His first script acceptance for the series was his first script rejection in Hollywood. He wrote or co-wrote eight episodes of the CBS animal drama Gentle Ben (1967–1969) as well as four episodes of the sitcom Nanny and the Professor (1970).

He also created Apple's Way (1974-1975) and Boone (1983–1984). Hamner's first name Spencer (Spencer's Peak) is the maiden name of his paternal grandmother Susan Henry Spencer Hamner's mother, Spencer (Spencer's Peak) is the maiden name of his paternal grandmother Susan Henry Spencer Hamner's child. Walter Clifton Hamner, the Waltons' paternal grandfather, and great-grandfather Walter Leland Hamner are both derived from him.

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