Screenwriter Eleanor Lamb dies

Monday, April 7, 2003 | 11:04 a.m.

Eleanor Lamb, who following her divorce from state Sen. Floyd Lamb began a brief but successful stint as a Hollywood screenwriter, died Thursday in Las Vegas. She was 86.

Graveside services for the Las Vegas resident of 40 years were to be today in Hiko. Palm Mortuary handled the arrangements.

Lamb teamed with veteran screenwriter Douglas Day Stewart to write "Where the Red Fern Grows" in 1974 and "Seven Alone" and "Against a Crooked Sky," both in 1975. Stewart would go on to write the early 1980s box office hits "The Blue Lagoon" and "An Officer and a Gentleman."

The Lamb-Stewart collaborations were dramas that emphasized family values. "Where the Red Fern Grows," a tale of a boy and his two red hounds getting through tough times in 1930s Oklahoma, has long been a popular video rental.

Lamb grew up around horses on a Hiko ranch and was a member of the National Cutting Horse Association and the Southern Nevada Barrel Racing Association.

Born Feb. 27, 1917, in Provo, Utah, she married Floyd Lamb in the late 1930s and divorced him in 1967. Lamb would go on to become one of the state's most powerful politicians. He died last June.

She is survived by two daughters, Laurelie Brown and Marsha Leason, both of Las Vegas; a son, Monte Lamb, of Las Vegas; eight sisters, Pauline Miller of Washington, Josephine Stewart of St. George, Utah, Alice Allen of Orem, Utah, Virginia Boyce of Provo, Utah, Phyllis Bishop of Birmingham, Ala., Ida Clare Bishop of Bountiful, Utah, Patricia Jupiter of Silver Springs, Md., and Roberta Marx of Provo, Utah; 13 grandchildren; 34 great-grandchildren; and three great-great grandchildren.

The family said donations can be made in Lamb's memory to the Alzheimer's Foundation.