Birney Jarvis
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Birney Jarvis, a retired San Francisco Chronicle reporter whose life read like a script for an adventure movie, died at his home in Bay Minnette, Ala., on June 3, 2012. He was 82 and suffered from leukemia. At various times, Mr. Jarvis was a Hells Angel, a blue water sailor, a boxer, a karate instructor, an author and a journalist. "He was a larger-than-life adventurer," said Jerry Carroll, a former Chronicle reporter and long time friend. "He was at home behind the wheel of a sailboat in a roaring gale, or at the reins of a covered wagon in the Texas hill country," Carroll said. "He collected antiques, played the banjo and could sing sea chanteys by the hour. He was a fitness buff who pounded a heavy punching bag every day well into his 70s. He was a man's man, but a lot of the ladies liked him too."Mr. Jarvis was born Dec. 9, 1929, in San Anselmo. His father was a sea captain who abandoned the family, and Mr. Jarvis had a hardscrabble childhood. He often recalled he had to walk to school barefoot. School never interested him; he dropped out in the ninth grade and never went back. He was an amateur boxer who won 56 bouts and lost one, and was a charter member and vice president of the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels. His cross-country travels on a Harley formed the basis for the television series "Then Came Bronson," which ran in 1969 and 1970. He got his start in news papering as a motorcycle messenger for the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, carrying old-time photo plates from crime scenes. He later worked as a cub reporter in Hollister and Redding and became a police reporter for The Chronicle in 1959. He covered everything from bank robberies and murders to the saga of Humphrey the Whale, a humpback who got lost in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.Mr. Jarvis quit The Chronicle four times to go sailing or traveling. Once, when his sailboat foundered off the Cuban coast, Mr. Jarvis returned to Califonia with only 13 cents in his pocket. He was so valuable as a reporter that The Chronicle hired him back immediately. In 1987, he quit The Chronicle for good and retired to the Alabama Gulf Coast region, to be near his wife's family. In retirement, he wrote for local newspapers, became a flotilla commander in the Coast Guard Auxiliary and traveled.
Birney wrote a book titled "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor" , which is autobiographic and recounts his adventures while sailing.
As stated above, his motorcycle adventures were the basis for the pilot movie "Then Came Bronson". Birney was friends with Denne Bart Petitclerc, who wrote the story/movie, based on the stories that Birney told of his adventures. Michael Parks played the part of Jim Bronson, which was the name that Denne came up with by reversing Birney's initials.. B J to J B..
Birney wrote a book titled "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor" , which is autobiographic and recounts his adventures while sailing.
As stated above, his motorcycle adventures were the basis for the pilot movie "Then Came Bronson". Birney was friends with Denne Bart Petitclerc, who wrote the story/movie, based on the stories that Birney told of his adventures. Michael Parks played the part of Jim Bronson, which was the name that Denne came up with by reversing Birney's initials.. B J to J B..