TV writer and producer JoAnn Young, 86, died on August 30. Young wrote and/or produced just the kind of PBS documentaries and specials I live for: In Performance at the White House, Great Performances, American Masters; specials on Rodgers & Hammerstein, Liza Minnelli, Lerner & Loewe, Frank Sinatra, Mario Lanza, John Wayne, the Carpenters, Petula Clark, The Mamas and the Papas—even Lawrence Welk and Perry Como, both of whom “roll off my knife,” as they said in the ‘20s. “In 1977, after watching a favorite Sunday morning program, she sent a handwritten letter to the producers and received an offer to start her career in television,” Young’s family wrote. “The show was the CBS series Camera Three, a 30-minute Peabody Award winning program that ran from 1955-1978. Over the past 40 years she wrote and produced her own specials, collaborated with various public television stations.” Jane Klain of The Paley Center added that “she was a dynamic force in arts and cultural documentaries . . . She was so instrumental and consequential in Camera Three and PBS documentaries as producer, director and writer.”
