Denne Bart Petitclerc
Encyclopedia
Denne Bart Petitclerc was an American
journalist
, war correspondent
, author
, television producer
, and screenwriter
.
, Petitclerc was five years when old when his father, Edmund Petitclerc, reportedly took him to Seattle to see the angel
atop the Bon Marché department store Christmas
tree. His father told young Petitclerc to watch the angel and would be right back. He abandoned the family and never returned.
His mother, Grace Petitclerc (née
Meyers), abandoned with two children, decided to place Petitclerc and his older sister in an orphanage
in San Jose
in order to go to school. His mother would earn a doctorate
and teach at UC Berkeley. She also wrote books about educating handicapped
children.
, Petitclerc wrote a fan letter to writer Ernest Hemingway
. He received a response from Hemingway and they became friends. On one of their fishing trips Hemingway alluded to a yet unfinished book he believed would make a great film.
Later Petitclerc would adapt Hemingway’s novel and wrote the screenplay for the film Islands in the Stream. Petitclerc worked for several newspapers including the San Francisco Chronicle
and the Miami Herald. In 1950, he became a Korean War
correspondent
for the San Francisco Chronicle.
In the 1960s he wrote his first script for the television show Bonanza
and soon was working on the long time series. He became the show’s executive story editor. In 1969 he created for NBC
Then Came Bronson
, a one-hour drama television show about a motorcycle
riding news reporter searching for the meaning of life
. He also helped launch The High Chaparral
(1967–1971) for NBC. He wrote the pilot and other episodes.
His book Le Mans 24 was a novelization of the film Le Mans
starring Steve McQueen
.
Speaking of Petitclerc in the Los Angeles Times Peter Bart
, editor in chief of Variety
said, "He was a master at translating, keeping the essence of Hemingway's attitudes and ideas but framing them into lines that an actor could speak on the screen."
Petitclerc wrote several movies for television and the screenplay for the 1972 feature film Red Sun
with Charles Bronson
and Toshirō Mifune
. Other credits include the television
movies Key West, Men of the Dragon, The Woman Who Sinned, The Vivero Letter and The Cowboy and The Ballerina.
In 1969, Petitclerc donated his collection of Hemingway's letters to Sonoma State University
in Rohnert Park, California
.
by Ernest Hemingway who moved there in the early 1960s. Petitclerc lived there for the last thirty-five years of his life. He died on February 3, 2006 in Los Angeles
due to complications from lung cancer
.
According to Variety, Petitclerc was working on Papa, a film based on his relationship with Hemingway at the time of his death. When he died the film was in development.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, television producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
, and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
.
Biography
Born in Montesano, WashingtonMontesano, Washington
Montesano is a city in Grays Harbor County, Washington, United States. The population was 3,976 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Grays Harbor County.-History:Montesano was first settled in 1852 by Isaiah L. Scammon....
, Petitclerc was five years when old when his father, Edmund Petitclerc, reportedly took him to Seattle to see the angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
atop the Bon Marché department store Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
tree. His father told young Petitclerc to watch the angel and would be right back. He abandoned the family and never returned.
His mother, Grace Petitclerc (née
NEE
NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...
Meyers), abandoned with two children, decided to place Petitclerc and his older sister in an orphanage
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
in San Jose
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
in order to go to school. His mother would earn a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
and teach at UC Berkeley. She also wrote books about educating handicapped
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
children.
Career
In the 1950s while living and working in FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, Petitclerc wrote a fan letter to writer Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
. He received a response from Hemingway and they became friends. On one of their fishing trips Hemingway alluded to a yet unfinished book he believed would make a great film.
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
and the Miami Herald. In 1950, he became a Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
for the San Francisco Chronicle.
In the 1960s he wrote his first script for the television show Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
and soon was working on the long time series. He became the show’s executive story editor. In 1969 he created for NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
Then Came Bronson
Then Came Bronson
Then Came Bronson is a short-lived adventure/drama television series that aired on NBC from 1969 to 1970, and was produced by MGM Television. The series, created by Denne Bart Petitclerc, began with a movie pilot on Monday, March 24, 1969. The series was greenlit for one year and began its first...
, a one-hour drama television show about a motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
riding news reporter searching for the meaning of life
Meaning of life
The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of life or existence in general. This concept can be expressed through a variety of related questions, such as "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", and "What is the meaning of it all?" It has...
. He also helped launch The High Chaparral
The High Chaparral
The High Chaparral is a Western-themed television series starring Leif Erickson and Cameron Mitchell which aired on NBC from 1967 to 1971. The show was created by David Dortort, who had previously created the hit Bonanza for the network...
(1967–1971) for NBC. He wrote the pilot and other episodes.
His book Le Mans 24 was a novelization of the film Le Mans
Le Mans (film)
Le Mans is a 1971 action film directed by Lee H. Katzin. Starring Steve McQueen, it features footage from the actual 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race....
starring Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen
Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was an American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination...
.
Speaking of Petitclerc in the Los Angeles Times Peter Bart
Peter Bart
Peter Benton Bart is an American journalist and film producer. He perhaps best known for his lengthy tenure as the editor of Variety, an entertainment-trade magazine....
, editor in chief of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
said, "He was a master at translating, keeping the essence of Hemingway's attitudes and ideas but framing them into lines that an actor could speak on the screen."
Petitclerc wrote several movies for television and the screenplay for the 1972 feature film Red Sun
Red Sun
Red Sun is a Western film, one of few with an international cast. It stars U.S.-born actor Charles Bronson, Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune, French actor Alain Delon and Swiss actress Ursula Andress. It was filmed in Spain by the British director Terence Young. It was released in Europe in 1971 and...
with Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson , born Charles Dennis Buchinsky was an American actor, best-known for such films as Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, Rider on the Rain, The Mechanic, and the popular Death Wish series...
and Toshirō Mifune
Toshiro Mifune
Toshirō Mifune was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, from 1948 to 1965, in works such as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo...
. Other credits include the television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
movies Key West, Men of the Dragon, The Woman Who Sinned, The Vivero Letter and The Cowboy and The Ballerina.
In 1969, Petitclerc donated his collection of Hemingway's letters to Sonoma State University
Sonoma State University
Sonoma State University is a public, coeducational business and liberal arts college affiliated with the California State University system. The main campus is located in Rohnert Park, California, United States and lies approximately south of Santa Rosa and north of San Francisco...
in Rohnert Park, California
Rohnert Park, California
Rohnert Park is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, located approximately north of San Francisco. The population at the 2010 United States Census was 40,971. It is an early planned city, modeled directly after Levittown, New York and Levittown, Pennsylvania. Rohnert Park is the...
.
Later years and death
Petitclerc was led to Ketchum, IdahoKetchum, Idaho
Ketchum is a city in Blaine County, Idaho, United States, in the central part of the state. The population was 3,003 at the 2000 census. It is in the Wood River Valley, adjacent to Sun Valley; the two communities share many resources and both sit in the same valley beneath Bald Mountain, with its...
by Ernest Hemingway who moved there in the early 1960s. Petitclerc lived there for the last thirty-five years of his life. He died on February 3, 2006 in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
due to complications from lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
.
According to Variety, Petitclerc was working on Papa, a film based on his relationship with Hemingway at the time of his death. When he died the film was in development.
Award nomination
- Islands in the Stream (1974). Nominated for a Writers Guild of America AwardWriters Guild of America AwardThe Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
for his screenplay adaptation of Hemingway’s novel.
Books
- Rage of Honor. Doubleday: 1966.
- Le Mans 24. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: 1971. ISBN 0151498202.
- Destinies. Simon and Schuster: 1981. (Co-author Peter Bart.) ISBN 0671246771.