In Remembrance: Denne Bart Petitclerc

     Denne Bart Petitclerc, the journalist and screenwriter whose friendship with Ernest Hemingway led him to adapt the writer’s posthumously published novel Islands In The Stream for the big screen, has passed away on February 3, 2006 in Los Angeles, CA. He was 76.

     Born on May 15, 1929 in Montesano, Washington, Petitclerc’s father abandoned the family when Petitclerc was five. Unable to care for her two children, his mother placed him and his older sister into a San Jose orphanage while she returned to school to further her education. At age 13, Petitclerc was placed into a foster family and, although he dropped out of school in ninth grade to work the, he longed to be a writer. He eventually persuaded the editor of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat to let him cover local sports, though he almost lost the job after turning in his first assignment due to poor spelling. At 21, Petitclerc was serving as a Korean War correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle and covered the Cuban Revolution for both the Chronicle and the Miami Herald.

     Petitclerc struck up his friendship with Hemingway after sending the writer a fan letter in which he disagreed with a negative review that had been published concerning Hemingway’s writing. In the letter, Petitclerc admitted that he had learned the craft of writing in part by copying Hemingway’s novels out longhand. Impressed, the writer invited him to Cuba for what would become the first of many fishing trips. It was on one of these fishing trips that Hemingway told Petitclerc that his then unpublished novel Islands In The Stream would possible make a good movie.

     It was while writing for the Chronicle that Petitclerc began his screenwriting career by scripting an episode of the long-running western series Bonanza at the urging of a neighbor. He would go on to write several more episodes for the series as well as episodes for the series The High Chaparral and created the series Then Came Bronsan in 1969.

     Petitclerc’s first film was 1971’s Red Sun, which teamed Charles Bronsan and Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. His adapting of Hemingway’s Islands In The Stream for the 1977 film came at the insistence of Hemingway’s widow Mary. He also wrote the 1998 thriller The Vivero Letter.

     Petitclerc’s final screenplay, Papa, is currently in pre-production. It is a semi-autobiographical story of a young journalist covering the Cuban Revolution who finds a father figure in Ernest Hemingway.