Above: Earl Hamner, Jr. and Richard Thomas on the set of The Waltons, 1976
BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
Birth name: Earl Henry Hamner, Jr.
Origin: USA
Instrument:
Genre: Writer, producer
Born: July 10, 1923
Schuyler, Virginia, U.S.
Died: March 24, 2016 (aged 92)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
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BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE
Earl Henry Hamner, Jr. (July 10, 1923 – March 24, 2016) was an American television writer and producer (sometimes credited as Earl Hamner), best known for his work in the 1970s and 1980s on the long-running CBS series The Waltons and Falcon Crest. As a novelist, he was best known for Spencer’s Mountain, which was inspired by his own childhood and formed the basis for both the film of the same name and the television series The Waltons, for which he provided voice-over narration.
Earl Hamner, Jr. was born July 10, 1923 in Schuyler, Virginia to Doris Marion (née Giannini) and Earl Henry Hamner, Sr. The oldest of eight children, Hamner’s family siblings consisted of five boys and three girls. After Hamner, the boys, from youngest to oldest, were James Edmund, Willard Harold, Paul Louis, and Clifton Anderson. The girls, from youngest to oldest, were Nancy Alice, Audrey Jane, and Marion Lee.
The family of Hamner’s mother, the Gianninis, were immigrants who came to the United States from Lucca, Italy in the 1700s[citation needed]. His father’s family came to Virginia from Wales[citation needed]. Until the 1900s, the Hamners were tobacco farmers near James River, Virginia, when they moved to Schuyler located on the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
A company town where the economy was based in soapstone mining by New Alberene Stone, Schuyler was hit hard by the Great Depression, and thus the company and its mines were forced to close. Hamner’s father worked in the mines from the time his oldest son was born until the company’s closing. After losing his job, Earl, Sr. could only find work as a machinist at the DuPont factory in Waynesboro, Virginia, about 30 miles away.
Due to the distance between home and work, Earl, Sr. lived at a boarding house in Waynesboro during the week and travelled back to Schuyler and his family on the weekend. Taking a bus from Waynesboro to Charlottesville and another stop along the way, Hamner’s father would walk six miles to the family home at the end of his weekly journey. Taking that walk on a snowy Christmas Eve in 1933 was the inspiration for “The Homecoming”, Hamner’s 1970 novel, which became a Christmas special and the pilot for The Waltons in 1971.
Hamner died of cancer on March 24, 2016, aged 92.
List of works
Novels
Fifty Roads to Town (1953)
Spencer’s Mountain (1961)
You Can’t Get There From Here (1965)
The Homecoming: A Novel About Spencer’s Mountain (1970)
Non-fiction
The Avocado Drive Zoo (a memoir) (1999)
Good Night, John Boy (2002; reminiscences of making The Waltons TV series)
Generous Women (2006; collection of memoirs)
Screenplays
Palm Springs Weekend (1963)
Charlotte’s Web (1973)
Teleplays
Highway (1954)
for The Twilight Zone :
“The Hunt” (1962)
“A Piano in the House” (1962)
“Jess-Belle” (1963)
“Ring-a-Ding Girl” (1963)
“You Drive” (1964)
“Black Leather Jackets” (1964)
“Stopover in a Quiet Town” (1964)
“The Bewitchin’ Pool” (1964)
Heidi (1969)
Appalachian Autumn (1969)
Aesop’s Fables (1971)
The Homecoming (1971; for CBS)
Where the Lilies Bloom (1972)
The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (1983)