TOM CLANCY
Tom Clancy was born April 12, 1947 in Baltimore, Maryland to Thomas, who worked as a mail carrier, and Catherine, who worked at a department store. He attended Loyola High School in Townson and graduated in 1965, going on to study at Loyola College in Baltimore. While there, he tried to join the U.S. Army Officers’ Training Corp, but failed his eye exam. He would study English literature in university and graduate in 1969. The summer after graduating, he married Wanda Thomas, an insurance agency manager. Clancy would take up a similar profession, working as an insurance agent. He worked for various firms, including ones in Baltimore and Connecticut, before he went to Owings, Maryland to work at a firm owned by his wife’s grandfather. He would later purchase the family company in 1980.
Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, Clancy studied military tactics and technologies to provide a foundation for his true passion: writing. He published his first novel, The Hunt for Red October, in 1984 through the Naval Institute Press, a non-profit publisher that had never printed an original work of fiction. The novel initially gained traction through word-of-mouth, and was soon discovered by Michael Deaver – then-president Ronald Reagan’s confidante. Deaver liked the book so much he gave copies to most of the people in the West Wing. It eventually reached Reagan himself. He publicly commented out the book, describing it as “perfect yarn,” and the Cold War novel went on to become an unexpected bestseller. This attention and popularity also came with his second novel, Red Storm Rising (1986). He published Patriot Games and The Cardinal of Kremlin in 1988 and as the ‘80s drew to a close, he was heralded as one of the most popular and successful novelists of the decade.
In 1990, Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, was adapted into a film starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin as CIA analyst Jack Ryan. He continued writing in the 1990s, beginning the decade with The Sum of All Fears and Clear and Present Danger. Further film adaptations came in 1992 and 1994, as Harrison Ford portrayed Jack Ryan in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Clancy was also be a part of a group of local investors that in 1993, purchased the Baltimore Orioles.
In 1996, Clancy founded video game developer Red Storm Entertainment. Their first game, Tom Clancy’s Politika, was released for PC in 1997, and in 1998, they published Rainbow Six. It would be the world’s first tactical first-person shooter and was the first in a long line of successful sequels. In late 2000, the studio was purchased by Ubisoft Entertainment, but would maintain close ties to Tom Clancy, using his name in various titles they published, including Tom Clancy’s Spinter Cell and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon. The extent of Clancy’s involvement in these games is unknown.
Film adaptations of his novels continued when The Sum of All Fears was released in 2002. Ben Affleck took over from Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford in previous versions as the new Jack Ryan. The character has subsequently been adapted for the feature film Jack Ryan: Shadow Agent, directed by Kenneth Brannagh and starring Chris Pine as the titular character. It will be the first Jack Ryan film not to be based on any singular book; instead drawing inspirations from several of Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels.
Clancy died at the age of 66 on October 3, 2012. He leaves behind a legacy that includes over 53 video games, five feature films and 25 books that have sold more than 100 million copies. He is survived by four children – his daughter Alexis with his second wife, Alexandra Llewellyn; and four children from a his prior marriage to Wanda King: Michelle, Christine, Kathleen and Thomas Clancy III.