John Jakes, author.
Mr. Jakes wrote some 60 novels, including westerns, mysteries, science and fantasy fiction, and children’s books. But he was best known for two series of novels with enormous mass-market appeal: “The Kent Family Chronicles,” eight volumes written in the 1970s to capitalize on the 1976 Bicentennial celebrations (55 million copies were sold), and the “North and South” Civil War trilogy, which appeared in the 1980s (10 million copies).
By the 1990s, Mr. Jakes had joined the charmed circle of America’s big-name authors — among them Mary Higgins Clark, Tom Wolfe, James Clavell, Thomas Harris and Ira Levin — whose publishers paid millions in advances for multi-book deals, although they had only vague ideas what the books might say. In 1990, Doubleday and Bantam paid Mr. Jakes $10 million for three novels as yet unwritten.
…
In 2012, Acorn Media released DVDs of “The Kent Family Chronicles” mini-series, with Jim Backus as John Hancock, Peter Graves as George Washington and William Shatner as Paul Revere. Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen and Robert Vaughn also played roles, in wigs, period garb and foreign accents. Almost 35 years later, Mr. Jakes was still delighted.
“I love melodrama,” he told The Times in an interview. “I never outgrew my fondness for melodrama.”
Lawrence sent over an obit for Rolly Crump, Disney Imagineer.
…
His propellers would become the inspiration for an architectural piece he called the Tower of the Four Winds, which he designed for the It’s a Small World attraction at the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York.
When the attraction moved to Disneyland in 1966, Crump designed the animated clock, which sends puppet children on a parade as each quarter-hour strikes, for the entrance.Crump also created the hand-carved tiki mask sculptures for the Enchanted Tiki Room and with Yale Gracey came up with ideas for The Haunted Mansion; he did concept paintings for the attraction’s amazing “stretch room.”