His father's family came to Virginia from Wales.
The family of Hamner's mother, the Gianninis, were immigrants who came to the United States from Lucca, Italy, in the 1700s. The girls, from youngest to oldest, were Nancy Alice, Audrey Jane, and Marion Lee. The other boys, from youngest to next-oldest, were James Edmund, Willard Harold, Paul Louis, and Clifton Anderson. The oldest of eight children, Hamner had four brothers and three sisters. Hamner was born July 10, 1923, in Schuyler, Virginia to Doris Marion (née Giannini) and Earl Henry Hamner Sr. As a novelist, he is best known for Spencer's Mountain, which was inspired by his own childhood and formed the basis for both the film of the same name and the television series The Waltons, for which he provided voice-over narration. (J– March 24, 2016) was an American television writer and producer (sometimes credited as Earl Hamner), best known for his work in the 1970s and 1980s as the creator of two long-running series, The Waltons and Falcon Crest.
