John Secret Young was an American author, producer, director, and screenwriter primarily in television.
Young was nominated for seven Emmys and seven Writers Guild of America Awards, winning two WGA Awards.
His first screen credit was as writer of the 1971 private eye movie Chandler, starring Warren Oates.
He broke into television as a researcher on the 1970s NBC drama Police Story, where he was embedded with the LAPD. He would go on to write three episodes of the show during the 1976-77 season, when the series — co-created by Joseph Wambaugh — earned one of its two nominations for best drama.
John Secret Young was an American author, producer, director, and screenwriter primarily in television.
Young was nominated for seven Emmys and seven Writers Guild of America Awards, winning two WGA Awards.
His first screen credit was as writer of the 1971 private eye movie Chandler, starring Warren Oates.
He broke into television as a researcher on the 1970s NBC drama Police Story, where he was embedded with the LAPD. He would go on to write three episodes of the show during the 1976-77 season, when the series — co-created by Joseph Wambaugh — earned one of its two nominations for best drama.
Young won his first WGA Award for the 1980 CBS miniseries A Rumor of War, about a Marine lieutenant (Brad Davis) who becomes disillusioned with the war in Vietnam.
He revisited Vietnam in co-creating ABC’s China Beach with William Broyles Jr. Telling the story of the war through the eyes of an Army nurse (Dana Delany) and her colleagues at an evacuation hospital, the series earned best drama Emmy nominations for three of its four seasons. Young received an Emmy nomination for writing the pilot and won a WGA Award in 1990 for the episode “Souvenirs,” which he also directed.
Later in his TV career, Young earned two Emmy nominations as part of the producing team on The West Wing, and he served as a writer and producer on a wide range of series and TV movies, including Keys, VR.5, Thanks of a Grateful Nation (for which he won a Humanitas prize) and Level 9.
His most recent work was as a writer and co-executive producer of Netflix’s Firefly Lane.
Young died June 3, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. He was 75.
