Chris Conkling
Encyclopedia
Jon Christopher "Chris" Conkling (born March 31, 1949) looks like a mix of Fergie and Jesus his abs are as hard as steel and hair is luscious blonde.And was a co-author of the screenplay for the animated version of Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings (1978 film)
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It contains both animation and live action footage which is rotoscoped to give it a more consistent look throughout the length of the movie. It is an adaptation of the first half of the high fantasy...

, directed by Ralph Bakshi and produced by Saul Zaentz. He has also published articles in BYU Studies
BYU Studies
BYU Studies is a multidisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing articles on a broad array of topics related to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...

, the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and the Ensign, and wrote the 1979 book A Joseph Smith Chronology and an award-winning article on Melville's "Bartleby The Scrivener."

Conkling has taught a variety of courses at the American Jewish University in Bel-Air, California. Prior to this he worked in advertising and public relations for several oil companies and Pool/Sarraille Advertising of Beverly Hills. He also wrote a paper entitled "The Dark Ages: The L.D.S. Church and Japan, 1924-1948" which is held by the Church History Archives and has been used as a source for published work by R. Lanier Britsch
R. Lanier Britsch
Ralph Lanier Britsch was a history professor at Brigham Young University who specialized in the history of missionary work by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , particularly in the Pacific Islands and Asia.- Biography :...

.

Conkling is a Latter-day Saint.

Conkling studied at the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

, Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

, Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...

.California State University, Dominguez Hills
California State University, Dominguez Hills
California State University, Dominguez Hills is a public university located in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County and was founded in 1960...

, and California State University, Northridge
California State University, Northridge
California State University, Northridge is a public university in Northridge, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, California, United States....

 from which he received his teaching credentials.

Lord of the Rings was nominated for a Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...

.

He wrote six complete scripts in an attempt to find the right approach for Bakshi--one covered only a third of the epic, one tried
to fit the entire saga into a single film, one tried to cut it in half; one version even focusted on a re-telling by Pippin and Merry. There was a good deal of experimentation as to how to approach the enormous saga. Eventually, popular science fiction novelist, Peter S. Beagle, was called in to do some revisions, although Conkling still retained first credit on the final version.

He was also a story consultant for the 1977 BYU Film Studio film The Mailbox and wrote The Emmitt Smith Story for BYU. He also wrote several management videos which appeared on PBS, and was also a writer for ABC's television series The Hardy Boys
The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries
The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries is a television series which aired for three seasons on ABC...

.

Conkling and his wife Robin are the parents of six children. His mother was in the singing quartet The King Sisters, who had a weekly ABC television musical in the mid-sixties, called The King Family. His father, James Conkling, was a record executive, who became Capitol Record's first vice president, then president of Columbia Records, and founder and first president of Warner Bros. Records. He also helped to found the Grammy Awards where he became the Grammy's first national chairman.

Conkling's entire family is rather accomplished. One cousin was musical director for the Sonny and Cher show, another the voice of Leonardo on "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" for a decade, another was the female lead on the long-running TV program "My Three Sons" and yet another several created the signingtimes sign language videos. One sister, Jamie Miller, has published a half dozen books and another is married to a top Yankee Scout. One Uncle, big band leader and guitar virtuoso Alvino Rey, was the first inductee into the steel guitar hall of fame, another, Bob Clarke, produced and starred in such "B" monster movies as "The Hideous Sun Demon" and "Man from the Planet X," another, Bill Burch, was a Universal Studio executive and longtime protegee of Gene Autry. Among his second cousins is the wife of astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and the founders of the alternative rock band "The Arcade Fire." His son runs the graphic novel websites smashallrobots and steampunkwilly.

At AJU Chris Conkling created courses in literature of utopia and literature of evil, taught ancient Greek and Roman literature, and was faculty advisor for several years on the student newspaper. He currently works as a 12th grade English teacher and creative writing teacher at Sylmar High School
Sylmar High School
Sylmar High School is a public school in the northeast San Fernando Valley in the Sylmar district of Los Angeles, California. Established in the 1950s, it is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, District 2, and serves more than 3,600 students in grades 9-12. The school mascot is the...

's Math/Science Magnet, in Sylmar, Ca
Sylmar, Los Angeles, California
Sylmar is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. The northernmost neighborhood in the city, Sylmar is located east of Interstate 5 and north of the city of San Fernando...

.

Sources

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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