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Larry McMurtry (1936-2021)
Photo: Steve Granitz / WireImage
He won the Oscar late in his career, together with Diana Ossana, based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx, he wrote the screenplay for "Brokeback Mountain", the love story of two gay cowboys.
The fact that Larry McMurtry won the award for an adapted script was somewhat untypical for the native Texan, who actually fueled Hollywood - and the US book market - with his own stories.
Time and again, McMurtry devoted himself to the pioneers and settlers in the Wild West of the USA.
In 1986 he was awarded the Pullitzer Prize for the western novel "Lonesome Dove" (German title "Weg in die Wildnis").
The novel was adapted for television and the miniseries starring Robert Duvall won seven Emmys.
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McMurtry at the desk
Photo: Diana Walker / The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images
Larry McMurtry was born on June 3, 1936 in Wichita Falls into a Texas rancher family.
Reading Don Quixote awakened the twelve-year-old's love for novels, which led him to study literature in Houston and Denton.
Later he again taught literature at various universities;
he let himself
Inspired by his youth in the small Texas town of Archer City, McMurtry wrote the nostalgic novel "The Last Picture Show", published in 1966, whose bitterness and black humor director Peter Bogdanovich made an epoch-making film in 1971 (with Jeff Bridges, Cloris Leachman).
The script, written jointly by McMurtry and Bogdanovich, was nominated for an Oscar, but did not receive the award.
Peter Bogdanovich later turned McMurtry's sequel »Texasville« into a film, albeit with less success.
Larry McMurtry had another hit with "Terms of Endearment".
The mother-daughter novel became the literary template for the 1983 film by James L. Brooks starring Shirley McLaine, Debra Winger and Jack Nicholson.
Throughout his life, McMurtry remained connected to his hometown Archer City, which also served as the location for several of his novel adaptations.
Having previously operated bookstores in Houston and Georgetown (Washington DC), he opened a second-hand bookstore here as well, gradually expanding its stock to several hundred thousand titles.
In 2012, however, McMurtry had most of the collection housed in several buildings auctioned in a two-day auction in order to bring the business back to a reasonable size.
Larry McMurtry died on Thursday in his home in Tucson, reports the Los Angeles Times.
He had suffered from complications from Parkinson's disease for some time.
The New York Times had previously reported the writer's death, citing his long-time press spokeswoman.
McMurtry was 84 years old.
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