It was adapted into a feature film, “Hud,” starring Paul Newman. His first book, “Horseman, Pass By,” follows life on a cattle ranch in post-WWII Texas. On the whole, adaptations of his books have been nominated for 34 Oscars and have won 13.īorn in Texas as the son of a rancher, McMurtry’s first three novels drew from his upbringing and were a trilogy of stories set in the small town of Thalia. The sweeping, 843-page novel became one of McMurtry’s most acclaimed and commercially successful works, and the subsequent TV miniseries starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for 18 Emmys. McMurtry won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1985 novel “Lonesome Dove,” which told the story of two retired Texas Rangers in the waning period of the Old West who drive a cattle herd to Montana as they grapple with age, death and faded glory. He most recently collaborated with Ossana on “Joe Bell” starring Mark Wahlberg, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year. He was first nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 1972 for “The Last Picture Show” and won in 2006 for “Brokeback Mountain,” the screenplay he co-wrote with his longtime collaborator Ossana based on the short story by Annie Proulx.Īlso Read: Richard Gilliland, 'Designing Women' Character Actor, Dies at 71 He was renowned for his ability to remove the romanticism from the image of the American West and highlight the reality of modern-day Texas’ small towns. McMurtry wrote over 30 novels in a career that spanned five decades. He was surrounded by his wife, Norma Faye, longtime writing partner Diana Ossana and other family members when he passed. McMurtry died on Thursday evening of heart failure, his publicist told TheWrap via statement. Larry McMurtry, the prolific novelist of “Lonesome Dove” and screenwriter of “Brokeback Mountain,” “Terms of Endearment” and “The Last Picture Show,” has died.

Lonesome dove books in order