John Otis Carney

John Otis Carney died of cancer New Year's Day, January 1, 2006, on his ranch in southeastern Arizona. He was 83. Otis Carney's seventeen books, both fiction and non-fiction include such best-sellers as Love at First Flight, When the Bough Breaks and New Lease on Life. As a screen and television writer, he won Freedom Foundation and Western Heritage Awards, writing for Dragnet, Zane Grey Theatre, The Dick Powell Show, Walt Disney Presents and other television series. For the 1967-68 seasons he created The Monroes. He was a writer and producer on the cinerama spectacular, Cinerama Holiday. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, and have been syndicated in Knight-Ridder newspapers. His landmark political film, written with Stephen Shadegg, for the 1964 Goldwater campaign, Choice, was cited by the New York Times as "unique… a forerunner that enduringly altered political discourse in the United States." A 1943 (class) graduate of Princeton University, Mr. Carney was a Captain in the Marine Corps, serving as a pilot in the Pacific Theatre of World War II for 22 months, largely for General Roy Stanley Geiger, the Marine Corps Commandant. He was a native of Chicago and Lake Forest, Illinois, the grandson of a midwestern industrialist, William J. Carney, active in the coal mining, timber and graphite industries. A cattleman as well as a writer, Mr. Carney owned working ranches at various times in Arizona, California and Wyoming. His deep and comprehensive knowledge of the American West figured prominently in his work, which increasingly embraced a transit in his political thinking from the rock-ribbed conservatism of his midwestern origins to a more nuanced, pacifist, New Age progressivism. He was active in conservation issues as well, especially regarding his beloved Upper Green River Valley in western Wyoming, where he had ranched for almost half a century. He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Fredericka, and by his three sons, Thomas, John and Peter, and by his seven grandchildren. A memorial service will be held in Tucson, Arizona. In lieu of flowers, please send a donation to New Dimensions, Box 569 Ukiah, CA 95482.