Marilyn Durham

Marilyn Durham
Born	Marilyn Wall September 8, 1930 Evansville, Indiana, U.S.
Died	March 19, 2015 (aged 84) Evansville, Indiana, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist
Genre	Western, adventure
Spouse	Kilburn Durham (1950-1994; his death)
Children	2

Marilyn Durham (née Wall, September 8, 1930 – March 19, 2015) was an American author of fiction. Her best-known novel is her first, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, which was made into a film of the same name.

Durham was born in Evansville, Indiana, in 1930, to Russell and Stacy Birdsall Wall. Her father was an L&N blacksmith. Durham attended Evansville College (now called the University of Evansville) for a year (1949–50). She married Kilburn Durham, a field representative for Social Security, in November 1950, and settled into life as a wife and mother. She was a self-described "frumpy housewife." The Durhams had two daughters, Elaine and Jennifer. Durham had a lifelong interest in the history of medieval England, archaeology, theology, and astronomy.

One evening in 1969, Durham told her husband that she could write a novel better than any she had been reading lately. Eventually she set about doing this. While her daughters were in school, Durham began writing a novel at her dining room table.) She made efforts to conceal her writing from her family because, in her words, "If it wasn't any good, I wanted to be the only one who knew. I didn't want egg on my face." Her husband discovered that she was writing when she had almost finished the sixth chapter, and she swore him to secrecy on the subject.

Durham sold The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing to Harcourt Brace, which published it in 1972. The novel is set in the American West in the 1880s, but is not written in a genre style. It is the story of Jay Grobert, a man of the West, and his offbeat relationship with Catherine Crocker, a woman from the East who is fleeing an unhappy marriage. Jay kidnaps Catherine on his way to rob a train and together they travel through the Wyoming Territory. Catherine eventually discovers that Jay is haunted by the murder of his wife, a Shoshone Indian named Cat Dancing, and his actions after the murder. Pursued by Catherine's husband and a railroad agent, Catherine and Jay fall in love. The novel became a best-seller and was generally praised by reviewers for its deft character studies as well as its effortlessly entertaining style.

The following year, the film version of the novel was released. Directed by Richard C. Sarafian, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing starred Burt Reynolds and British actress Sarah Miles. It would be Reynolds's first romantic movie. Many who regarded the novel highly were disappointed by its formulaic Hollywood treatment in the movie. Veteran screenwriter Eleanor Perry had written the first script and told Durham that she loved her heroine. But the studio then hired a string of "script doctors," all male, who completely rewrote the characters, dialogue, and to Durham's astonishment, the ending. Whereas Jay Grobert dies on the last page of the book, when Miles falls to her knees beside Reynolds, who has been gunned down, Reynolds says, "I think I can get up."

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