John Sacret Young, Producer of ‘Firefly Lane,’ ‘The West Wing,’ Dies at 75

John Sacret Young, the Emmy-award nominated writer and producer who co-created the Vietnam War drama China Beach has died. The creator, who also worked on shows like The West Wing and Firefly Lane, died Thursday in Los Angeles after a 10-month battle with brain cancer, CAA announced. He was 75.

Young earned seven Emmy nominations, won two Writers Guild Awards, and two Humanitas Prizes over the course of his career. He was known for mentoring young writers and crewmembers on his shows — the China Beach writers room included a bevy of future Emmy winners and nominees like John Wells, Carol Flint, Lydia Woodward, Paris Qualles, and Ann Donahue.

“John was my mentor and my friend. He was an exceptionally gifted writer who was generous with his time, thoughtful, wickedly funny, patient and tough,” said Wells in a statement. “He cared deeply about writing, about words and craft. He set the bar high and expected you to clear it. He took a chance on a young and inexperienced writer and I will be forever grateful for his giving me that chance.”

The writer/producer was born in 1946 and grew up in New Jersey, breaking into the industry in 1971 as a writer of the private eye movie Chandler. He continued into television later in the 1970s as a researcher for the NBC drama Police Story, going on to write three episodes of the show when the series earned one of its two nominations for best drama.

Young won his first WGA Award for the 1980 CBS miniseries A Rumor of War, nabbing a second for “Souvenirs,” his 1990 episode of China Beach. He also wrote the screenplays for the oscar-nominated drama Testament and Romero.

Along with film and television, Young wrote books like his memoir Remains: Non-Viewable about his cousin’s death in Vietnam, The Weather Tomorrow, and Pieces of Glass — An Artoir. His final book, Pieces of Tinsel, about his time in Hollywood, is set to debut in 2022.

Young earned two Emmy nominations while producing Wells’s The West Wing, also producing TV series and movies VR.5, Thanks of a Grateful Nation, and Keys later on in his career. Most recently, Young served as a writer and co-executive producer on the Netflix hit Firefly Lane.

Young is survived by his wife, Claudia Sloan; brother Mason and his wife, Beth Gragg; four children; and three grandchildren.