Earl Hamner, Jr.

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Earl Henry Hamner Jr born on July 10 1923 in Schuyler Virginia is an American television writer and producer sometimes credited as Earl Hamner best known for his work in the 1970s and 1980s on the longrunning CBS series The Waltons and Falcon Crest As a novelist he is best known for the novel Spencers 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 voiceover narration He based the cantankerous Walton family grandparents in the popular television series on his own maternal ItalianAmerican grandparents Ora Lee and Colonel Anderson Gianniny an anglicized version of the Italian surname Giannini In 1954 Hamner wrote Hit and Run an episode of the NBC legal drama Justice in which guest star EG Marshall plays a man haunted by his crime of striking a newsboy on a bicycle and fleeing the scene of the accident Hamner also contributed eight episodes in the early 1960s to the CBS science fiction series The Twilight Zone His first script acceptance for the series was his big writing break in Hollywood He created two less successful series Boone on NBC 19831984 starring Tom Byrd and Barry Corbin and Apples Way 19741975 on CBS with Ronny Cox Hamner used family names to title his projects Spencer Spencers Mountain is the maiden name of his paternal grandmother Susan Henry Spencer Hamner The Waltons comes from his paternal grandfather Walter Clifton Hamner and greatgrandfather Walter Leland Hamner Description above from the Wikipedia article Earl Hamner Jr licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia