Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American writer. He is most famous for writing techno-thriller novels, which include technical details about espionage and military science. Before becoming a writer, Clancy worked as an insurance agent. His first novel, The Hunt for Red October, was published in 1984. Eighteen more novels were published between 1986 and 2013.

Clancy’s Ryanverse series follows a character named Jack Ryan, who works as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency. This series is one of the best-selling book series in history, with over 100 million copies printed. Clancy also wrote non-fiction books about military topics and created other techno-thriller series under his name.

Clancy died in 2013 at the age of 66. After his death, his family estate continued the Ryanverse series with other authors. His work has been adapted into films, television shows, and video games, including the Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, and The Division series.

Early life and education

Clancy was born on April 12, 1947, at Franklin Square Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He grew up in the Northwood neighborhood in northeast Baltimore. His family was Irish-American. He was the second of three children to Thomas Leo Clancy (1918–1995), who worked for the United States Postal Service, and Catherine Mary Clancy (née Langan; 1918–2001), who worked in a store’s credit department. He was a member of Troop 624 of the Boy Scouts of America. Clancy’s siblings are Patrick and Margaret.

Clancy’s mother helped pay for him to attend Loyola High School in Towson, Maryland, a private Catholic secondary school taught by the Jesuit religious order (Society of Jesus). He graduated from Loyola High School in 1965. He then attended Loyola College (now Loyola University Maryland) in Baltimore. Clancy began his college studies as a physics major. Because of poor grades, he later changed his focus to English, as "it was an easy major." Even after this change, he remained not focused on his studies, spending much of his time reading books about military and naval history instead of working on his schoolwork. Clancy graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature in 1969, earning a 1.9/4.0 GPA. While at Loyola College, he was president of the chess club. He joined the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps; however, he was not allowed to serve because of his myopia (nearsightedness), which required him to wear thick eyeglasses.

After graduating, Clancy earned certifications in business and insurance and worked for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1973, Clancy joined the O.F. Bowen Agency, a small insurance agency in Owings, Maryland, founded by his wife’s grandfather. In 1980, he bought the insurance agency from his wife’s grandmother and wrote novels in his free time. While working at the insurance agency, he wrote his first novel, The Hunt for Red October (1984).

Career

Tom Clancy's writing career began in 1982 when he started writing The Hunt for Red October. In 1984, he sold the book to the Naval Institute Press for $5,000. The publisher was impressed with the work. Deborah Grosvenor, the editor who read the book, later said she convinced the publisher to publish it: "I think we have a potential best seller here, and if we don't grab this thing, somebody else would." She believed Clancy had a natural talent for storytelling and that his characters had witty dialogue. Clancy hoped to sell 5,000 copies, but the book sold over 45,000. After publication, President Ronald Reagan praised the book, calling it "the best yarn," which helped increase sales to 300,000 hardcover and two million paperback copies. The book was praised for its technical accuracy, which led to Clancy meeting several high-ranking U.S. military officers, including Steve Pieczenik. It also inspired recurring characters in his later works. Clancy's novels often focus on heroes, such as Jack Ryan and John Clark, who are Irish Catholics like himself. His stories typically show heroes who are highly skilled, disciplined, and honest, and who only lose their composure when incompetent politicians or bureaucrats interfere. Their victories over evil symbolically ease the impact of the Vietnam War.

In 1986, Clancy co-wrote Red Storm Rising with fellow military-focused author Larry Bond, as he stated in the book's introduction. The book was published by Putnam and sold nearly a million copies in its first year. Clancy became a key author in Putnam's publishing list, which focused on writers who could produce books annually. His publisher, Phyllis E. Grann, called these authors "repeaters."

Clancy's name appears on the covers of many books. Seventeen of his novels reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list. He co-authored memoirs of top generals and created guided tours of the U.S. military's elite aspects. Andrew Bacevich said: "Clancy did for military pop-lit what Starbucks did for caffeinated beverages: he launched a large and successful business that serves and grows an eager consumer base. Whether the product provides much nourishment is not important. Its taste is enough to keep customers returning."

By 1988, Clancy earned $1.3 million from The Hunt for Red October and signed a $3 million contract for his next three books. In 1992, he sold North American rights to Without Remorse for $14 million, a record for a single book. By 1997, Penguin Putnam Inc. (part of Pearson Education) paid Clancy $50 million for world rights to two new books and another $25 million to Red Storm Entertainment for a four-year book/multimedia deal. Clancy later agreed with Penguin's Berkley Books to write 24 paperbacks for the ABC television miniseries Tom Clancy's Net Force, which aired in 1998. The Op-Center series, which inspired books by Jeff Rovin, was part of a $22 million agreement, bringing the total value of the package to $97 million.

In 1993, Clancy joined a group of investors, including Peter Angelos, to buy the Baltimore Orioles from Eli Jacobs. In 1998, he tried to purchase the Minnesota Vikings but had to cancel the deal due to a divorce settlement.

The first Net Force novel, Net Force (1999), was adapted into a 1999 TV movie starring Scott Bakula and Joanna Going. The first Op-Center novel, Tom Clancy's Op-Center (1995), was released with a 1995 NBC miniseries of the same name, starring Harry Hamlin and other actors. Though the miniseries did not continue, the book series did, but later had little connection to the original TV version beyond the title and main characters' names.

Clancy wrote nonfiction books about the U.S. Armed Forces. He also created book and video game lines using his name, written by other authors following storylines similar to his works.

With the release of The Teeth of the Tiger (2003), Clancy introduced Jack Ryan's son and two nephews as main characters. These characters appeared in his last four novels: Dead or Alive (2010), Locked On (2011), Threat Vector (2012), and Command Authority (2013).

In 2008, the French video game company Ubisoft purchased the right to use Clancy's name for an undisclosed amount. This name has been used in video games, movies, and books. Based on his interest in private spaceflight and his $1 million investment in the launch vehicle company Rotary Rocket, Clancy was interviewed in 2007 for the documentary film Orphans of Apollo (2008).

Political views

Clancy was a conservative and a member of the Republican Party. He dedicated several of his books to American conservative political figures, including Ronald Reagan. Clancy supported the National Rifle Association and opposed abortion.

Clancy praised President George W. Bush as a "good guy"; however, he opposed the Iraq War and argued it lacked a valid reason for starting. Clancy once had a heated argument with Richard Perle, stating he almost "came to blows" with Perle after Perle criticized Colin Powell for being too concerned with the safety of American soldiers.

Before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Clancy said that voting for Democrat John Kerry would be "a stretch for me," but he did not support Bush either.

Many scholars have studied the political aspects of Clancy's books, especially during the Cold War. Historian Walter Hixson has argued that Clancy's novels, such as The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising, showed the values of the Cold War during Reagan's time. These books reflected how people viewed Soviet actions and the security goals of the United States during that era.

On September 11, 2001, Clancy was interviewed by Judy Woodruff on CNN. During the interview, he noted that Islam does not allow suicide. He also discussed concerns with military experts about the lack of planning to deal with a hijacked plane used in an attack and criticized how the media covered the U.S. Intelligence Community. Clancy later appeared on PBS's Charlie Rose to talk about the events of September 11 with Richard Holbrooke, New York Times journalist Judith Miller, and Senator John Edwards. Clancy was invited to these shows because his book Debt of Honor (1994) described a scenario in which a disgruntled Japanese airline pilot crashes a fueled Boeing 747 into the U.S. Capitol during a presidential speech, killing the president and most of Congress. In the book, Clancy also suggested that Japan's success is partly due to unfair trade agreements. In the sequel Executive Orders (1996), the president introduces a new foreign policy rule that holds foreign leaders personally responsible for attacks on U.S. citizens, land, or property in the future.

A week after the September 11 attacks, Clancy suggested on The O'Reilly Factor that some American left-wing politicians were partly responsible for the failure to prevent the attacks because they had weakened the Central Intelligence Agency.

Personal life

Clancy's first wife, Wanda Thomas King, was a nurse. They married in 1969 and had four children. The couple separated briefly in 1995 and permanently separated in December 1996. Wanda Clancy filed for divorce in November 1997, which was finalized in January 1999. As part of the divorce, she and Clancy divided his small share in the Baltimore Orioles.

On June 26, 1999, Clancy married freelance journalist Alexandra Marie Llewellyn, whom he met in 1997. Llewellyn is the daughter of J. Bruce Llewellyn and a family friend of Colin Powell, who originally introduced the couple. They remained together until Clancy's death in October 2013. They had one daughter.

Clancy was a Roman Catholic. The plot of his novel Red Rabbit revolves around John Paul II. In a June 27, 1993, interview with The Washington Post, he said, "I have included such scenes in my books before, but they were brief because I am a married Catholic and I do not engage in such behavior." In a 2002 interview with Lev Grossman for Time magazine, Clancy expressed concern about society's double standard in how Catholics are viewed compared to other groups: "You can't hate black people any more, of course, and you can't hate homosexuals any more, but you can hate all the Catholics you want."

Clancy's 80-acre estate, once a summer camp, is located in Calvert County, Maryland. It has a panoramic view of the Chesapeake Bay. The stone mansion, which cost $2 million, has 24 rooms and includes a shooting range in the basement. The property also features a World War II-era M4 Sherman tank, a Christmas gift from his first wife.

Clancy also purchased a 17,000-square-foot penthouse condominium in the Ritz-Carlton, in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, for $16 million. Clancy and his wife combined four units to create the apartment.

His Chesapeake Bay estate sold for $4.9 million in 2020.

Death

Clancy passed away due to heart failure on October 1, 2013, at Johns Hopkins Hospital, close to his home in Baltimore. John D. Gresham, a co-author and researcher who worked with Clancy on multiple books, stated that Clancy had experienced heart problems for several years before his death: "Five or six years ago, Tom had a heart attack and underwent bypass surgery. It was not another heart attack, but rather his heart became too weak to function properly."

The Chicago Tribune reported that Stephen Hunter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic and author, said, "When Clancy published The Hunt for Red October, he changed and broadened the genre. Because of this, many people were able to write similar books who had not been able to before."

On March 31, 2014, the Orioles honored Clancy with a video tribute during their home opener game. The team also wore a special tribute patch on their jerseys for the entire season.

Film, TV and video game adaptations

Officially licensed games based on The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising were released in the late 1980s and early 1990s for several 8-bit home computers, including the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. These games included a submarine combat simulation inspired by the book and an action game based on the film.

More recently, Ubisoft has created multiple video game series inspired by Tom Clancy's books. Some of these series were approved by Clancy and include his name in their titles.