Title: John Sacret Young Papers

Dates: 1960-2019

Collection Number: WGF-MS-144

Creator/Collector: Young, John Sacret, 1946-2021

Extent: 20 linear feet

Repository: Writers Guild Foundation Archive

Abstract: The John Sacret Young Collection, 1960-2019, consists of scripts, development material, production material, notes, correspondence, multimedia, book manuscripts, extensive research, and other materials related to Young’s work primarily as a dramatic television writer. The bulk of the collection consists of material from his work on TV series and movies including China Beach, The West Wing, Firefly Lane, Thanks of a Grateful Nation, Romero, and A Rumor of War.

Language of Material: English

Open for research. Available by appointment.

The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.

[Identification of item]. John Sacret Young Papers. Collection Number: WGF-MS-144. Writers Guild Foundation Archive

Donated by Claudia Sloan 02/21/2023

John Sacret Young, a writer, director, and producer of TV dramas was perhaps best known for co-creating the Vietnam War series China Beach. Born May 24th, 1946 in Montclair, NJ, Young attended College High School before attending Princeton where as a freshman he played football, hockey, and lacrosse. While at Princeton, he chose to earn a degree in religion as it allowed him to write a novel as his senior thesis. The winter after he graduated from Princeton John Sacret Young’s cousin Doug Young was killed in combat during the Vietnam War. His family’s emotional response to the death is chronicled in Young’s 2005 memoir Remains: Non-Viewable. War and its requisite tolls would become a prevailing theme throughout Young’s career. After graduating from Princeton, Young moved out to Los Angeles and tested to become an LAPD officer and while he never joined the force, he got his start in Hollywood shadowing police officers as an embedded researcher for Police Story. He went on to write three episodes of the series in 1976, the same season the show won an Emmy award for Best Drama. Young would go on to win a Writers Guild Award for his 1980 TV miniseries adaptation of Philip Caputo’s memoir A Rumor of War. He published his first novel, The Weather Tomorrow in 1982. In 1983 the Young penned drama Testament told the story of the unraveling of a small suburban town after nuclear war nuclear war. Originally made for TV, it was given a theatrical release when Paramount Pictures decided to debut it in theaters rather than on PBS’s American Playhouse. Testament would net Young two Christopher Awards as well as garnering a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Actress Jane Alexander. Toward the end of the 1980s Young teamed up with Vietnam veteran William Broyles Jr. to create China Beach for ABC. China Beach¬ was notable not only for its stark look at the stress and trauma of war told through the eyes of women serving at a field hospital during the Vietnam War but also for staffing a writer’s room where four of six writers were women. The show lasted four seasons and garnered a WGA award for the Young written and directed episode Souvenirs, as well as four other WGA award nominations, a Peabody award, a Golden Globe Award, A People’s Choice Award, and Five Emmy nominations. Amid the critical success of China Beach Young wrote the screenplay for the feature film Romero, a 1989 biographical film dramatizing the life and subsequent assassination of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero. Through the 1990s Young would go on to work as a writer, director, and producer on Keys, Vr.5, Sirens, Orleans, and Humanitas prize-winning Gulf War mini-series Thanks of a Grateful Nation. In the 2000s Young would go on to write Muhammad Ali biopic King of the World as well as write and producing on cybercrimes thriller Level 9. Following that he wrote and produced two seasons of The West Wing, resulting in further Emmy and Writers Guild Award nominations. In 2017 he released another memoir, Pieces of Glass: An Artoire, this time focusing on art appreciation and the effect it has had on his life. In 2018 Young was awarded the Kieser Award for lifetime achievement in film and television by the Humanitas Prize. Following that he wrote a 2019 episode of the anthology series Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, before writing and producing on Firefly Lane. Aside from his television and movie work, Young taught classes at Claremont McKenna College as well as at his alma mater Princeton, where he established the John Sacret Young ’69 Fund for Visiting Filmmakers. Young served on the Board of Directors of the Humanitas and The Writers Guild Foundation. Young died June 3rd, 2021, and is survived by his wife Claudia Sloan, brother Mason, children Jacy, Jake, Julia, and Riley, and three grandchildren.

Series I: Produced Projects, 1977-2019, consists of scripts, book manuscripts, development documents, production documents, correspondence, and ephemera stemming from produced projects from John Sacret Young’s career. Subseries A: China Beach, consists of scripts written or edited by John Sacret Young, production and development documents for episodes of China Beach that were directed or produced by Young, photos, promotional materials, and other ephemera from the show, and correspondence including fan letters from an effort to save the show. Subseries B: The West Wing, consists of scripts and development documents from Young’s time working on The West Wing season 5 and 6, including multiple drafts with extensive notes, outlines, and research documents. Subseries C: Movies, consists of scripts, development documents, production documents, and correspondence for Young’s theatrical releases, Romero and Testament. Subseries D: Other TV shows and TV movies, consists of scripts, development documents, production documents, and ephemera for Young’s various TV shows and TV movie projects: A Promise to Keep, A Rumor of War, Champions, Deceit, Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, Fire on the Mountain, Firefly Lane, Generations, In the Time of the Butterflies, Keys, King of the World, Orleans, Police Story, Quarterlife, Sirens, Special Olympics, Thanks of a Grateful Nation, The Fitzpatricks, The Pentagon Papers, and The Possessed. Subseries E: Books and Plays, consists of development documents, notes, scripts, and manuscripts for Young’s play Thanksgiving, and books Remains: Non-Viewable, Special Olympics, and The Weather Tomorrow. Series II: Unproduced Projects, 1978-2016, consists of scripts, book manuscripts, development documents, and production documents from unproduced or unaired projects. Notable items include manuscripts and correspondence for Young’s unpublished novel Remnants; development documents and scripts for two sequels for Keys; scripts and development documents for an unproduced project based on Dolly Parton’s song Jolene; extensive research about ice skater Maribel Vinson Owen and the 1961 Belgian plane crash; an extensive collection of manuscript drafts, notes, research, correspondence, and interviews for an unpublished book The Black Rainbow. The details and specific titles for each folder are indicated in the inventory. Series III: Personal and Professional Papers, 1956-2013, consists of books, ephemera, awards, company records, research, teaching documents, notes, and notebooks. Subseries A: Professional and Company Records, consists of paperwork from the management of Young’s company Sacret Inc, financial records, correspondence, pitch documents, annual reports, interviews, and notes, including from his involvement with the Humanitas Prize and the Writers Guild Foundation. Subseries B: Personal Files contain notes, records, event programs, photos, signed books, correspondence, awards, promotional materials, and family paperwork. Subseries C: Teaching and Other Work, consists of sermons, book reviews, notes, and lectures. Subseries D: Research, consists of a large collection of general research not related to specifically known projects including, press clippings, books, and notes. Series IV: Media, 1977-2017, consists of both personal and professional video and audio recordings. There are DVDs, Audio CDs, VHS tapes, DATA DVDs, and digital files including a considerable number of interviews and TV appearances with Young, home video cassettes, author panels, behind the scenes footage, and collected promotional videos. Items of note are a VHS and digitized copy of a home video of a trip Young took to Vietnam with Dana Delany after China Beach ended and a backup of Young’s computer files from his time working on The West Wing, which are complementary to the paper files.