John Weld, 98; Newspaperman, Author, Screenwriter

John Weld, 98, a former editor and publisher of the Laguna Beach Post and the author of a dozen fiction and nonfiction books, died of age-related causes June 14 in a board-and-care facility in Monarch Beach in Dana Point.

Among Weld’s books are “Don’t You Cry for Me,” a 1940 novel based on the Donner party; the autobiographical “Young Man in Paris” (1985); and “September Song,” a 1998 biography of his friend, actor Walter Huston.

From 1949 to 1965, Weld co-published the weekly Laguna Beach Post with his wife of 66 years, Katy, a former Goldwyn Girl known as Gigi Parrish.

Born in 1905 in Birmingham, Ala., Weld had an early career in Hollywood in the 1920s as a stunt double for Tom Mix, Buck Jones and other stars.

He chronicled those days in his 1991 book “Fly Away Home: Memoirs of a Hollywood Stunt Man.”

Weld later worked as a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune in Paris and the New York American and The World in New York City. He also wrote screenplays for Columbia and Universal; served as director of publications for the Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn, Mich., and owned Ford dealerships in Laguna and San Clemente.