Bayard Johnson, American screenwriter, Died at 63

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Bayard Johnson was born in Seattle and died on February 10, 2016, in Los Angeles.

He was a screenwriter and producer.

He studied philosophy and writing at the University of Puget Sound.

Bayard has written and produced feature films for Warner Brothers, Disney, Sony Pictures, MGM/UA, and 20th Century Fox.

Bayard Johnson has made two feature films in Africa and has written movies based on both the classic Tarzan character and on Kipling’s Jungle Book.

Bayard Johnson first African movie, “Damned River” (Zimbabwe, 1988), was among the Top 20 action movies of the 1980s in the Netflix database.

Along with his partner Bill Duke (director of “Deep Cover,” co-star of “Predator”), Johnson co-wrote a TV series for HBO and produced a feature film (2007’s “Cover”) about the HIV epidemic.

With partner Russell Means, Johnson co-wrote the feature screenplay “Wounded Knee 1973” and the 2012 book “If You’ve Forgotten the Names of the Clouds, You’ve Lost Your Way: An Introduction to American Indian Thought and Philosophy.”

Also with Russell Means, Bayard co-wrote, co-produced, and directed the award-winning short film “Looks Twice,” based on a traditional Lakotah story.

As a licensed Master Mariner, Bayard like to fish in Alaska and California and worked as captain of an oil spill recovery ship in California while begin on his writing career.

His novel “Damned Right” was published by Fiction Collective 2 in 1994, and in German translation in 1998 (titled “Speed Taxi”).

His short fiction had surfaced on occasion “Fiction International,” “Exquisite Corpse,” “Theater der Zeit” (Berlin), “Alt-X”.

Whilst Mother Nature’s Army, he has released a number of albums including 1992’s “Live At Mama’s” and “Coming To Get You 2014.”

He produced “LSD: Leary/Stokes Duets” (1997) with Timothy Leary, and “The Radical” (1996) with Russell Means.

He left behind his parents Richard and Virginia Johnson; his wife Lyndal; two sons, Ronan and Colter, a director and editor; a brother and two sisters; and two grandchildren.

Bayard Johnson passed away at 63 yrs old.