Ken Grimwood

Kenneth Milton Grimwood was an American author, sometimes known as Alan Cochran. In his fantasy fiction Grimwood combined themes of life-affirmation and hope with metaphysical concepts, themes found in his best-known novel, the highly popular Replay. Grimwood took an interest in EC Comics and radio journalism while growing up in Pensacola, Florida. He graduated from Indian Springs School in 1961 and then spent the summer in Paris while studying at the Sorbonne. He attended Emory College from 1961 to 1963. In the mid-1960s, he worked in news at WLAK in Lakeland, Florida. Heading north, he studied psychology at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where he contributed short fiction to Bard's student publication, Observer in 1969, graduating in 1970. Some of his early novels were written while he was nightside editor at KFWB News 980 radio in Los Angeles, but the success of Replay enabled him to leave KFWB News 980 for full-time writing. Married once with no children, Grimwood had friends on both coasts, including Tom Atwill, who is related to the actor Lionel Atwill. Atwill described his friend's "free spirit lifestyle" and recalled, "He was a loner, almost a recluse. He liked small gatherings of friends. We had many dinner parties with him and some friends, and he would always be the one to keep the evening hilarious; he was a great storyteller. He did not like publicity and was actually quite shy... He was a media junkie. He owned the first Betamax sold; he had the largest video library I've ever seen. One of his favorite things to do was for he and I to watch some old movie in the afternoon; we did it often.