Biographie
Fenton William Earnshaw was born in Duluth, St. Louis County, MN on 2 August 1912 to Harry Alfred Earnshaw (1878-1953) and Vena Minnie, nee Radtke (1877-1959). Both of his parents are buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. He attended UCLA, then known as "the Southern Campus", graduating in 1936 with a BA in Political Science. He was the president of the Blackstonians, a "pre-legal society" and a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. He was also a colonel in the ROTC. He married Dorcas Abbott Brown on 7 June 1938 in Orange County, California. They had a son named Peter, born 12 March 1943. Dorcas died in September, 1994. When he registered for the draft on 16 October 1940, he and Mrs. Earnshaw resided at 1520 Surf Avenue in Balboa, California. Their phone number was NEwport-1895. He initially joined the Army in WWII, but, he told the Los Angeles Times in a 22 December 1952 article, he switched to the Navy, "and eventually found himself commanding a landing craft. He received a summons to report to Washington and before he knew what had happened was assigned to the OSS [Office of Strategic Services, predecessor to the CIA]." "One of his first assignments was to land in Formosa and blow up a Japanese naval dock." He escaped by posing as member of a Chinese burial party. USN records from 1944 list Earnshaw as a Lt. JG as of July, 1943. As for writing for the early TV series Biff Baker, U.S.A. (1952), starring Alan Hale Jr., Earnshaw further told the Times that he took inspiration for the story lines from his own experiences in the OSS and his father's scripts from the radio series, "Chandu the Magician". Earnshaw's first script for 77 Sunset Strip (1958) was Iron Curtain Caper (1958), with Kurt Kreuger as a German agent named John Luder. The last script that Earnshaw is credited with was a 1961 two-part episode of 77 Sunset Strip (1958). He moved to Honolulu in 1963 and lived in the Ala Wai Boat Harbor aboard his 40' ketch, the "Vena M", named for his mother. He also spent several years in Tahiti, writing, and was fluent in French He worked variously for the Hawaii Department of Education, and radio stations KTRG and KGMB. In February of 1970, he flew to the Cleveland Clinic Hospital for cardiac surgery, and was accompanied by his brother, Harry. The surgery was deemed successful, but complications set in, including pneumonia. On 6 March, Earnshaw suffered cardiac arrest and remained unconscious until his death on the 11th. His son, Peter, was also at his side. He was cremated in Cleveland. Funeral services were held at the First Presbyterian Church in Honolulu, and in accordance with his wishes, his ashes were scattered in the ocean off Kona.
