Harry Lawton
| Harry Lawton | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Harry Wilson Lawton December 11, 1927 Long Beach, California, US |
| Died | November 20, 2005 (aged 77) Dana Point, California, US |
| Occupation | Author, novelist, journalist, editor |
Harry Wilson Lawton (December 11, 1927 – November 20, 2005) was an American writer, journalist, editor and historian who wrote several books about Native Americans in California. One of them, Willie Boy: a Desert Manhunt, was made into a movie in 1969, by the title Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, starring Robert Redford.
Lawton was born on December 11, 1927 in Long Beach, California. He enrolled at University of California, Berkeley after high school. There he wrote for the college newspapers and magazines. Lawton opened the Haunted Bookstore in Berkeley, which specialized in rare Western Americana.
He was also a reporter, and while working at The Press-Enterprise, he heard about the Last Great Manhunt of the Old West.
The Last Great Manhunt was a 1909 story about Willie Boy, a Paiute-Chemehuevi Indian who falls in love with his distant cousin, Carlota Boniface. Although the couple were madly in love, the marriage is forbidden by Carlota's father, Old Mike, the tribe's shaman. Desperate, Willie Boy kills Old Mike and runs away with Carlota into the California Desert. In the end, Carlota is shot to death and Willie Boy commits suicide.
Lawton's Willie Boy: a Desert Manhunt won several awards for best non-fiction novel, and was later made into a movie, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here in 1969. It was precisely based on interviews and research the author did on the Morongo Indian Reservation during three years before the publishing of the book.
Respected by his fellow writers, Lawton always believed in the preservation of the American Indian community. He helped found the California Museum of Photography; the Malki Museum, which was the first American Indian Museum established at a California reservation; and the Malki Press, a non-profit organization responsible for publishing books about the Native Americans in California.
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