Dalene Young, the screenwriter whose credits included the coming-of-age comedy-drama Little Darlings, featuring Tatum O’Neal and Kristy McNichol, and the Mary Steenburgen-starring drama Cross Creek, has died. She was 85.
Young died May 9 in Portland, Oregon, of complications from Alzheimer’s disease, her husband, director Robert Martin Carroll, announced.
Young received a Daytime Emmy nomination for co-writing the 1999 Showtime children’s special Locked in Silence and landed a Christopher Award and a Humanitas Prize nomination for her work on the 1992 NBC telefilm Jonathan: The Boy Nobody Wanted.
She also wrote the films The Baby-Sitters Club (1995) and Baby Luv (2000) and other telefilms, including 1983’s Will There Really Be a Morning? — based on actress Frances Farmer’s autobiography — 2000’s The Last Dance and 2002’s Miss Lettie and Me.
“In her heyday, she was arguably the top writer of made-for-television movies,” her husband noted.
Young had a long career on the stage as well, and her most recent acting credit came in the independent film Pig (2021), starring Nicolas Cage.
Little Darlings (1980), which Young co-wrote with Kimi Peck, was a hit for Paramount, grossing $34.3 million domestically off a budget of $5.3 million.
Soon after, she was hired by producer Robert B. Radnitz to adapt Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ memoir Cross Creek, about the writer’s experiences in rural Florida in the 1930s. The 1983 Universal film, directed by Martin Ritt, featured Rip Torn, Alfre Woodard and Peter Coyote alongside Steenburgen and drew Oscar noms for Torn, Woodard, costume design and score.
Born in Hawaii in 1939, Young spent her early years in Kuliouou, outside Honolulu, on a farm her family had inherited from the last king of Hawaii. While playing with animals and surfing, she developed an interest in acting, particularly during her time at the Punahou School, where President Obama would attend as well.
After graduation, Young moved to San Francisco and a few months later to New York, where she sang in bars and clubs, many of which turned out to be owned by mobsters. “They wouldn’t ever let the customers put any pressure on her,” Carroll said. “They made sure she got home safe at night.”
In the early 1960s, Young became involved in the off-off-Broadway scene, performing in coffee houses and low-rent theaters. It was then that she also started writing — she didn’t care for many of the roles she was being offered — and among her plays was 1969’s What Color Is Love?
She was “not only a talented, bright playwright, but one of the most brilliant young actresses in our midst,” Theatre Arts magazine once wrote.
Young left New York for Los Angeles in the late ’60s after being hired by famed producer Ray Stark. She made friends with such bohemian characters as Timothy Leary, but, not caring for the commercial Hollywood world and missing the theater, returned to New York a few months later. This time, she had a husband, Carroll, whom she had met at her going-away party.
Hollywood beckoned again a year later, and she had her first big hit with the 1976 NBC movie Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, a ratings winner that starred Eve Plumb and was critically admired for its frank discussion of teenage sexuality.
She also wrote such TV movies as 1978’s Deadman’s Curve, 1979’s Can You Hear the Laughter? The Story of Freddie Prinze and 1980’s Marilyn: The Untold Story.
Young, for many years, ran an L.A.-based writing group before she moved to Portland in 2006. She also performed in numerous stage plays, including West Coast Ensemble productions of The Trip to Bountiful, The Grapes of Wrath and To Kill a Mockingbird.
In addition to her husband of 53 years — he directed the David Carradine-starring Sonny Boy (1989) — survivors include her daughter, Eden.
Stephen Galloway is dean of the film school at Chapman University.
