John Ford Noonan

John Ford Noonan Jr. (October 7, 1941 – December 16, 2018) was an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. He is best known for his Off-Broadway hit two-hander comedy "A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking." Noonan's first major production was the 1969 play "The Year Boston Won the Pennant"; he continued writing throughout the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, completing more than 30 plays in total. Noonan wrote occasionally for television in the 1980s. He shared the 1984 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series with Tom Fontana and John Masius for an episode of the show St. Elsewhere; he received a second Emmy nomination in 1985 for his TV adaptation of his play Men Need Help. Early life Noonan was born in Connecticut on Oct. 7, 1941 to Rita , a mathematics teacher, and John Noonan Sr., a jazz musician and doctor of dental surgery. Noonan's place of birth has been variously reported as Stamford and Greenwich. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University in 1964 and a Master of Arts in theater arts from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1966. After graduating, Noonan briefly taught Latin, English, and history at a high school in Long Island.