Biografi
Fenton William Earnshaw was born on August 2, 1912, in Duluth, St. Louis County, Minnesota, to Harry Alfred Earnshaw (1878–1953) and Vena Minnie (née Radtke) (1877–1959). Both parents are interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. He attended UCLA, then called "the Southern Campus," earning a BA in Political Science in 1936. He served as president of the Blackstonians, a pre-legal society, and was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. Additionally, he held the rank of colonel in the ROTC. On June 7, 1938, he married Dorcas Abbott Brown in Orange County, California. They had a son, Peter, born March 12, 1943. Dorcas passed away in September 1994. When registering for the draft on October 16, 1940, Earnshaw and his wife lived at 1520 Surf Avenue, Balboa, California, with the telephone number NEwport-1895. Initially enlisting in the Army during WWII, Earnshaw told the Los Angeles Times on December 22, 1952, that he later transferred to the Navy, eventually commanding a landing craft. He was summoned to Washington and assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the CIA's predecessor. One early mission involved landing in Formosa to destroy a Japanese naval dock; he escaped disguised as a member of a Chinese burial party. Navy records from 1944 list him as a Lieutenant Junior Grade as of July 1943. Regarding his writing for the early TV series *Biff Baker, U.S.A.* (1952), starring Alan Hale Jr., Earnshaw shared with the Times that he drew inspiration from his OSS experiences and his father's scripts for the radio series *Chandu the Magician*. His first script for *77 Sunset Strip* (1958) was "Iron Curtain Caper," featuring Kurt Kreuger as German agent John Luder. His final credited script was a two-part episode of *77 Sunset Strip* in 1961. In 1963, he relocated to Honolulu, living aboard his 40-foot ketch, the *Vena M*—named after his mother—at Ala Wai Boat Harbor. He also spent several years writing in Tahiti and was fluent in French. Earnshaw worked for the Hawaii Department of Education and at radio stations KTRG and KGMB. In February 1970, he traveled to Cleveland Clinic Hospital for cardiac surgery, accompanied by his brother Harry. Although the surgery was initially successful, complications including pneumonia arose. On March 6, he suffered cardiac arrest and remained unconscious until his death on March 11, with his son Peter at his side. He was cremated in Cleveland; funeral services were held at the First Presbyterian Church in Honolulu. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were scattered in the ocean off Kona.
