Thomas Leo "
Tom" Clancy, Jr. (April 12,
1947 --
October 1,
2013) was an
American novelist and historian best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science storylines set during and in the aftermath of the
Cold War, and for video games that bear his name for licensing and promotional purposes.
Seventeen of his novels were bestsellers, and more than
100 million copies of his books are in print.[1] His name was also a brand for similar movie scripts written by ghost writers and non-fiction books on military subjects. He was a part-owner of the
Baltimore Orioles and
Vice Chairman of their
Community Activities and
Public Affairs committees.
Clancy's literary career began in
1982 when he started writing
The Hunt for Red October which in
1984 he sold for publishing to the
Naval Institute Press for $5,
000.[1][3] The publisher was impressed with the work;
Deborah Grosvenor, the Naval Institute Press editor who read through the work, said later that she convinced the publisher: "I think we have a potential best seller here, and if we don't grab this thing, somebody else would," and considered that Clancy had an "innate storytelling ability, and his characters had this very witty dialogue".[1] The publisher requested Clancy to cut numerous technical details, amounting to about
100 pages.[1] Clancy, who had wanted to sell 5,000 copies, ended up selling over 45,000.[3][8] After publication, the book received praise from
President Ronald Reagan, calling the work "the best yarn", subsequently boosting sales to
300,000 hardcover and 2 million paperback copies of the book, making it a national bestseller.[1][3][7] The book was critically praised for its technical accuracy, which led to Clancy's meeting several high-ranking officers in the
U.S. military.[1]
Clancy's fiction works, The Hunt for Red October (1984),
Patriot Games (
1987),
Clear and Present Danger (
1989), and
The Sum of All Fears (
1991), have been turned into commercially successful films with actors
Alec Baldwin,
Harrison Ford, and
Ben Affleck as Clancy's most famous fictional character
Jack Ryan, while his second most famous character,
John Clark, has been played by actors
Willem Dafoe and
Liev Schreiber. All but two of Clancy's solely written novels feature Jack Ryan or John Clark.
The first NetForce novel (titled Net
Force and published in
1999) was adapted as a television movie, starring
Scott Bakula and
Joanna Going. The first Op-Center novel was released to coincide with a
1995 NBC television mini-series of the same name (
Tom Clancy's Op-Center published in 1995) starring
Harry Hamlin and a cast of stars. Though the mini-series did not continue, the book series did, but it had little in common with the first mini-series other than the title and the names of the main characters.
With the release of
The Teeth of the Tiger (
2003), Clancy introduced Jack Ryan's son and two nephews as main characters; these characters continued in his last four novels,
Dead or Alive (
2010),
Locked On (
2011),
Threat Vector (
2012), and
Command Authority (2013).
Clancy wrote several nonfiction books about various branches of the
U.S. Armed Forces (see non-fiction listing, below). Clancy also branded several lines of books and video games with his name that are written by other authors, following premises or storylines generally in keeping with Clancy's works. These are sometimes referred to by fans as "apostrophe" books; Clancy did not initially acknowledge that these series were being authored by others; he only thanked the actual authors in the headnotes for their "invaluable contribution to the manuscript".
By
1988, Clancy had earned $1.3 million for The Hunt for Red October and had signed a $3 million contract for his next three books.[9] By
1997, it was reported that
Penguin Putnam Inc. (part of
Pearson Education) would pay Clancy $50 million for world rights to two new books, and another $25 million to
Red Storm Entertainment for a four-year book/multimedia deal.[10] Clancy followed this up with an agreement with
Penguin's
Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with the
ABC television miniseries
Tom Clancy's Net Force aired in the fall/winter of
1998. The Op-Center universe has laid the ground for the series of books written by
Jeff Rovin, which was in an agreement worth $22 million, bringing the total value of the package to $97 million.[10]
In
1993, Clancy joined a group of investors that included
Peter Angelos and bought the Baltimore Orioles from
Eli Jacobs.[11][12] In 1998, he reached an agreement to purchase the
Minnesota Vikings but had to abandon the deal because of a divorce settlement cost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_clancy
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- published: 10 Jun 2014
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