Larry McMurtry
| Larry McMurtry | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Larry Jeff McMurtry June 3, 1936 Archer City, Texas, U.S. |
| Education |
University of North Texas Rice University |
| Occupation | Novelist, screenwriter, essayist |
| Years active | 1961–present |
Larry Jeff McMurtry (born June 3, 1936) is an American novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the old West or in contemporary Texas. His novels include Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966) and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films earning 26 Academy Award nominations (10 wins). His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins), with the other three novels in his Lonesome Dove series adapted into three more miniseries earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay.
McMurtry was born in Archer City, Texas, 25 miles from Wichita Falls, Texas, the son of Hazel Ruth (née McIver) and William Jefferson McMurtry, who was a rancher. He grew up on a ranch outside Archer City, which is the model for the town of Thalia that appears in much of his fiction. He earned degrees from the University of North Texas (B.A. 1958) and Rice University (M.A. 1960).
McMurtry states in his memoir that he spent his first five or six years in his grandfather's house on a ranch without books, but his extended family would sit on the front porch every night and tell stories. It wasn't until 1942 when his cousin Robert Hilburn on his way to enlist for WWII stopped by the ranch house and left a box containing 19 books that he began to read. The books were standard boys' adventure tales of the thirties and he read them to tatters. The first book he read was Sergeant Silk: The Prairie Scout.
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