Boots LeBaron his legal name since the day he was born in Hollywood on July 10, 1932. He began writing essays, light poetry and interview stories when he was promoted from copyboy to TV staff writer at The Los Angeles Times. In the late 1950s, he volunteered to transfer from the drama department where he was doing interviews and writing the first FM radio column in Los Angeles to working as a crime reporter in the police beat at LAPD's Parker Center. There he learned about life, death and reporting working with newsmen he respectfully describes as "journalistic dinosaurs" representing four other metropolitan newspapers. The beat, he says, made "Front Page," the legendary stageplay and Billy Wilder movie look like a kindergarten class. After a brief stint as a general assignment reporter for The Times, he went into publicity representing the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. For the next 20 years he worked as a motion picture and TV writer-publicist for Universal Studios, was head feature writer for Rogers & Cowan (an international theatrical marketing/PR firm), turned down representing Barbra Steisand to publicize the Chrysler Corp. for Solters & Sabinson. As news division director for Richter, Mracky & Bates he introduced "Give A Hoot, Don't Pollute" and four other ecological slogans for the California state park system, worked as an advertising copy writer, creative director for NPRA, and a free-lance columnist for Los Angeles Copley newspapers including The Daily Breeze which printed more than 840 of his human-interest stories. His by-line articles were also published in The Times, the Los Angeles Examiner, the Herald-Express, as well as Peninsula People Magazine, The Easy Reader and Beach Reporter. As an artist, with the help of animator Walter Lantz, he has illustrated many of his own published stories. He is dyslexic, a former child actor, raised by a single parent (Thelma), the son of a rogue Hall of Fame stuntman (Bert LeBaron). He and his wife, JoAnne, have been married for more than 50 years. They have three adult children and four grandchildren. For the last 20 Years he worked as a writer-publicist at a variety of entertainment companies including Rogers & Cowan, Capitol Records, Universal Studios, and then returned to journalism as a free-lance writer. His stories and columns (some have been nominated for a Pulitzer prize or won other writing awards) were published in newspapers and magazines