He lived in Sacramento, California.

Not to be confused with the 91-year-old historian who lives in Hawaii, Robert R. Locke. Or the 52-year-old British actor. (Or with another man from Oregon with the same birth and death years!)

I can't find an exact death date. But since his birthdate was Dec. 30th, 1944, I'm sure Familysearch was wrong when they said he was 76.

Here's what I DID find (this is tiny):

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/67543692/robert-howard-locke

He took his pseudonym from the first names of his parents.

The play "The Dolly" received an "award for best original script from Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle."

From Wikipedia:

"Robert Locke spent three years in Liberia as part of the Peace Corps."

https://webpages.csus.edu/~boblocke/
(with photo)

Second half:

....Robert Locke. Hmm. Well, I am Robert Locke, yes, but sometimes I wonder because there is also this Clayton Bess fellow, and I suppose he must be accounted for here in this space, too.

But first let me describe this Robert Locke-Clayton Bess website you’ve ventured into, for whatever reasons you may have. The main purpose of the website is to allow you to get to know my works—that is, my novels, plays and my acting roles. I suppose I’ll have to throw in some autobiographical stuff and some photos, but really I often believe that my life is my work. Therefore I encourage you to click on the links to my books and plays to find out more about what drives me through my life.

Here on this homepage, however, I’ll tell you at least the why and the wherefore of my pen name. My father’s name is Clayton and my mother’s name is Bess. In 1982, with the publication of my first book, Story for a Black Night, I was afraid both of them did not have long to live because they were both having heart trouble. Putting their names on my book was a way of giving them immortality, I thought, and the greatest honor I had to award them for being such good parents to me all my life.

In any case, it seemed to me at that time that I didn’t really have any career as a writer ahead of me. During the ten years I searched for a publisher for Story for a Black Night and during the two years of delay after its actual acceptance for publication, that notion crystallized. So, it was no big deal giving away my own name to my parents. As it turned out, however, Story for a Black Night garnered starred reviews and even a few awards. So it was, after all, the beginning of a career for Clayton Bess, author of books for young people.

Just afterward, a completely separate career as playwright also finally began to open up. I had been writing plays and screenplays for years—to utter rejection by producers—but now my play The Dolly was about to be performed in San Francisco, with another production planned almost immediately afterwards in my hometown across the bay. For these productions, I wanted my own name as playwright, so that people who knew me from high school and college would come to see my work. It also seemed natural to me to keep the two writers separate since The Dolly was definitely for adults, and not at all for young people. (I’ve since changed my mind about that.)

And this is the how of my having two names attached to my writings. It would have been simpler if I had never invented Clayton Bess but simply let Robert Locke do his own writing and talking. But that’s the way it is.

(end)

https://webpages.csus.edu/~boblocke/extext/bio.html
(autobiographical essay)

https://webpages.csus.edu/~boblocke/extext/resume.html
(resume)

https://webpages.csus.edu/~boblocke/bess/tracks.html
(about "Tracks")

https://webpages.csus.edu/~boblocke/locke/dolly.html
(about "The Dolly")

https://webpages.csus.edu/~boblocke/locke/dollytoo.html
(more about "The Dolly")

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-04-19-ca-1693-story.html
(review of "The Dolly")

https://webpages.csus.edu/~boblocke/bess/bess.htm
(Locke's comments on his work)

https://webpages.csus.edu/~boblocke/actor/roles.html
(his roles as a stage actor)

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=584679428&q=%22clayton+bess%22+books&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwifz42VwtiCAxV2l4kEHfOaADkQ0pQJegQIDhAB&biw=1920&bih=925&dpr=1
(book covers)

About "Story for a Black Night":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_for_a_Black_Night

https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780395405710
(review of "Tracks" - the novel is harsh)

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/clayton-bess-2/story-for-a-black-night/
(one Kirkus review)

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/425263.Clayton_Bess
(reader reviews)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1458200.Story_for_a_Black_Night?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=l8LQYj2vlH&rank=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rbF-qYf4I0
(reading - in Spanish)

From "Contemporary Authors":

....Tracks was named best book for young adults by the American Library Association in 1986.

WORKS

BY THE AUTHOR:

"Who's Richard?" (three-act play), first performed as a staged reading in San Francisco, CA, at American Conservatory Theatre, 1977.
"The Dolly" (three-act play), first produced in San Francisco at the Geary Theatre, 1984.
"Play" (one-act play), first produced in San Francisco at Front Row Theatre Company, 1984.
"Rose Jewel and Harmony" (three-act play), first produced in San Francisco at Exchange for the Performing Arts, 1986.
"Murder and Edna Redrum" (two-act play), first produced in Nevada City, CA, at Gateway Players, 1989.

Also author of unproduced plays "On Daddy's Birthday" and "A Howling Twain," and of unproduced screenplays, including "Romantasy," "Crystal," "Blood," "China Clipper," "Air," "The Monitor," and an adaptation of "The Dolly."

FOR YOUNG ADULTS, UNDER PSEUDONYM CLAYTON BESS

Story for a Black Night (novel), Houghton, 1982.
("One dark night, an African father tells the story of another black night long ago when he, Momo, was a small boy--when he lay awake in his house in the bush, with his mother and grandmother and baby sister--when there came a knock on the door and evil crashed into his world. He tells of his strong, loving, gentle-hearted mother and her suffering to the very edge of death. And he tells of the old giant cottonwood tree that stood as a life spirit to them all. It is a story of beauty and tragedy, of a family confronting danger and dilemma, of a people enduring disorder and change. Its drama will hold the reader spellbound to the end.")

The Truth About the Moon, illustrations by Rosekrans Hoffman, Houghton, 1983.
("An African child is told several stories about the moon but still he feels has not learned the truth.")

Big Man and the Burn-Out (novel), Houghton, 1985.
("Long ago abandoned by his mother who could not tolerate farm life, young Jess works out an uneasy alliance with his unyielding grandmother.")

Tracks (novel), Houghton, 1986.
("When eleven-year-old Blue Roan learns that his rail-riding brother is taking off for Los Angeles in pursuit of Brother Starr's twin daughters, he's determined not to be left behind. Clayton Bess plunges the reader into the world of the 1930s, chronicling the best and the worst of the people struggling to make it through the hard times.")

He had one entry in the "Something About the Author" encyclopedias...but also an entry in volume 39 of the "Children's Literature Review" encyclopedias.

(It's kind of unusual for anyone with fewer than three entries in the former to get an entry in the latter - unless that person died before the 1970s, when the S.A.T.A. series started being published.)