Robert Guy Barrows, a lifetime member of the Writer’s Guild who wrote for television in the 1960s and 70s, has died following complications from cancer surgery in Pueblo, Colorado. He was 81.
Mr. Barrows was born in Fort Collins, Colorado on February 9th, 1926. He served with the 10th Mountain Division in Italy during World War II. After the war he earned a BA in English Literature at the Univ. of Colorado in Boulder and a Master of Theater Arts at UCLA. He later taught playwriting and theater arts at NYU and UCLA and worked in the theater scene in New York in the 1950s. At that time he was married to Bess Cheney (a.k.a. Elizabeth Terpiloff), who later became a Hollywood agent and also wrote for the British sci-fi series “Space 1999.” Through the course of his life Barrows was married four times and had six children and a stepchild.
In the late 1960s and early 70s, Barrows and his second wife Judith Friedman Barrows wrote for such television shows as Mission Impossible, Daniel Boone, Bonanza, Green Hornet, Wild Wild West, The Virginian, The Big Valley, The Fugitive and others, and also wrote a number of unproduced screenplays.
In the late 60s they produced the Michael McClure play “The Beard” which led to nightly arrests on profanity charges, the burning of the theater, and an eventual win in a landmark free speech case. In 1967 they sold the screenplay “Buffalo Man” and bought a ranch in New Mexico with the proceeds, where they wrote additional screenplays. Judith died in Los Angeles in 1970.
Barrows remarried and continued writing screenplays and books during his third marriage to Janette Davenport, and later self-produced several low-budget independent films with his fourth wife Jeri Wacaster. At the end of his life he was pitching a novel to publishers about the first woman president of the United States, an idea he had been working on in various forms since the 70s.
A private service was held in Boulder, Colorado on February 9, 2008. Mr. Barrows is survived by his wife Jeri, a former wife Janette, a brother Floyd in Michigan, a sister Bet in Texas, and his children: Brady (Alabama), David (London, England), Daniel (Martinez, California), Joshua (Martinez, California) and Grace (Martinez, California), a step-daughter Ann (Martinez, California), grandsons Jeremy (Brooklyn, NY) and Cole (Martinez, California), a granddaughter Nikita (Martinez, California).