Larry McMurry

Larry McMurtry was the son of a rancher, so he knew that environment perfectly, which would be reflected in his literary work, where he managed a fictional Texan town, Thalia. Interestingly, he says he doesn’t remember there being any books in his house during his younger years, but instead learned the value of stories from oral accounts on the family porch, memories and lore of the McMurtry clan.

His cousin Robert Hilburn started him in the interest of reading, who before leaving for combat in World War II, left a box of adventure books at the ranch. McMurtry completed undergraduate studies at the University of North Texas and Rice University. Here arose the desire to write, and his participation in workshops and seminars that led him to become a novelist.

Fortune was with him in his first novel, “Horseman, Pass By”, published in 1961 and turned into a film in 1963, Hu d, the wildest among a thousand , starring none other than Paul Newman , and which won 3 Oscars out of 7 nominations. Hollywood loved him, and he loved Hollywood as he demonstrated with his novel, later turned into a movie , The Last Movie , a heartfelt and nostalgic movie about movie theaters that were forced to close for various reasons at the same time as some populations before the new times and the advance of modernity were dying. The film was directed in 1971 by film buff Peter Bogdanovich, and won 2 Oscars out of 6 nominations, one of them for McCurtry himself, who adapted his novel with the director. The collaboration of both was repeated years later with the adaptation of a novel-sequel, Texasville (1990), of lesser impact. For his part, Sidney Lumet adapted another of Thalia’s trilogy novels, “Leaving Cheyenne”, which gave rise to the failed Lovin’ Molly in 1974.

Once again, the cinema was his partner in fortune with The Force of Endearment, adaptation of the novel “Terms of Endearment”, directed by James L. Brooks , which won 5 Oscars in 1983, including that of best film, careful study of characters , mother and daughter, plus ex-astronaut neighbor, with a dream cast that included Shirley Maclaine , Jack Nicholson , Debra Winger and  John Lithgow . Also in this case there was a deteriorated sequel, from 1996, The strength of affection. The story continues .

On television, it is worth noting how his Pulitzer-winning novel became a miniseries, Paloma solitaria would be highly celebrated with the Emmys, and it had a mostly male luxury cast, including Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall .

Curiously, the Oscar came from a story that was not his. In 1996 he stood out with the gay love story between cowboys Brokeback Mountain , where he adapted with Diana Ossana a story by Annie Proulx . Directed by Ang Lee , he drew attention to how in a natural setting and with male characters, a romance between a married man and a cowboy, played respectively by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal , could emerge . Active until the end, McMurtry repeated his collaboration with Ossana in Good Joe Bell , a 2020 film that describes the struggle of a man who defends his son who is bullied for being gay.

McMurtry was married twice. In 1959 with Josephine Ballard, with whom he had a son, and from whom he divorced in 1966. In 2011 he remarried Faye Kesey, the widow of his old friend, writer Ken Kesey.