'The Waltons' and 'Falcon Crest' Creator Earl Hamner Jr. Dead at 92
By Michael Slezak
Two-time Emmy nominee Earl Hamner Jr., best known for creating The Waltons and Falcon Crest, died Thursday at age 92, after a long battle with cancer.
His son announced the news via the producer’s Facebook page, noting his father passed while listening to one of his favorite songs, John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High.”
Hamner scored both of his Emmy nominations — one for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama Adaptation, the other for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama — for The Waltons, a Depression-era drama set in the Virginia mountains that was inspired by the producer’s own childhood and based on his novel Spencer’s Mountain.
He also served as narrator for the long-running family favorite, which ran for nine seasons in the 1970s, and spawned a series of subsequent TV movies.
Falcon Crest, a California-set primetime soap, couldn’t have been more different in tone from The Waltons, but it, too, lasted a whopping nine seasons.
Hamner also penned eight episodes of The Twilight Zone, four episodes of Nanny and the Professor and nearly a dozen books.
Listen to a clip of Hamner’s narration below, then share your own memories of the producers’ work in the comments.
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