Prolific screen and television writer John Furia Jr., who penned popular series including “Bonanza,” ”The Waltons” and “Hawaii Five-O” among many others, has died. He was 79.
The Writers Guild of America West disclosed Furia’s death in a statement Friday. The cause and exact time of his death could not immediately be determined.
Furia, a former president of the WGAW, was a longtime advocate for Hollywood writers. He was also a founding chairman of the Writing for Screen and Television Division at the University of Southern California’s film school and was a full professor there teaching screen and television writing.
“John’s character and dignity touched and influenced generations of writers from the founders of the Guild itself to the newest of student-associates,” said WGAW President Patric M. Verrone in a statement. “For those of us who relied on his knowledge and his counsel, John was more than an eminence grise; he was pure eminence.”
Born in 1929, Furia started his entertainment career singing with dance bands in New York City, but he soon discovered the fledgling television industry. He moved to California where he became one of Hollywood’s most productive dramatists, working for both major studios and networks.
He wrote for series such as “Bonanza,” ”The Twilight Zone,” ”Dr. Kildare,” ”Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre,” ”Hawaii Five-O,” ”The Waltons” and “Kung Fu,” as well as wrote or produced numerous movies-of-the-week.
Furia’s screen credits include “The Singing Nun” starring Debbie Reynolds and Greer Garson, in addition to executive producing films in Mexico, France, Canada, Spain, Croatia and Kenya.
“John had an old-world dignity about him that seems in such short supply in our world today,” Jack Epps, Jr., chair of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Writing for Screen and Television Division, said in a statement.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More