Category: Hombre

“I leave out the parts that people skip.”
– Elmore Leonard

Novelist Elmore Leonard dies at 87

Edited from “Crime novelist Elmore Leonard who wrote ‘Get Shorty’ and ‘3:10 to Yuma‘ dies at 87″
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2398117/Elmore-Leonard-Crime-novelist-wrote-Get-Shorty-3-10-Yuma-dies-87.html#ixzz2cYId2JOJ

Elmore Leonard died on Tuesday morning at age 87 from complications due to a stroke.

Leonard, winner of an honorary National Book Award in 2012.

Wrote more than 40 novels.

He didn’t have a best-seller until his 60th year.

He had some minor successes in the 1950s and ’60s in writing Western stories and novels, a couple of which were made into movies. But when interest in the Western dried up, he turned to writing scripts for educational and industrial films while trying his hand at another genre: crime novels.

Leonard had sold his first story, ‘Trail of the Apache,’ in 1951 and followed with 30 more for such magazines as ‘Dime Westerns,’ earning 2 or 3 cents a word.

One story, ‘3:10 to Yuma,’ became a noted 1956 movie starring Glenn Ford, and ‘The Captives‘ was made into a film the same year called ‘The Tall T. starring Randolph Scott.

But the small windfall wasn’t enough for Leonard to quit his day job. (‘3:10 to Yuma‘ was remade in 2007, starring Russell Crowe.)

His first novel, ‘The Bounty Hunters,’ was published in 1953, and he wrote four more in the next eight years. One of them, ‘Hombre,’ about a white man raised by Apaches, was a breakthrough for the struggling young writer. When 20th Century Fox bought the rights for $10,000 in 1967, he quit the ad business to write full time.

‘Hombre‘ became a pretty good movie starring Paul Newman, and the book was named one of the greatest Westerns of all time by the Western Writers of America.

Soon, another Leonard Western, ‘Valdez Is Coming,’ became a star vehicle for Burt Lancaster. But as the 1960s ended, the market for Westerns fizzled. Leonard wrote five more, but they sold poorly, and Hollywood had lost interest.

Elmore Leonard books that became movies:

3:10 to Yuma                     Get Shorty
The Big Bounce                  Touch
Stick                                     Jackie Brown
52 Pickup                           Out of Sight

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2398117/Elmore-Leonard-Crime-novelist-wrote-Get-Shorty-3-10-Yuma-dies-87.html#ixzz2cYTWh63a

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MFW: Well … maybe Hollywood has lost interest. But there’s plenty around here. I always say that ‘Great Directors make great movies’, but first you have to have great writing, a great story, with great characters and dialogue.

Thank you Leonard. You will be missed.

ElmoreLeonard.com

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