March 26 (UPI) — Larry McMurtry, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and screenwriter best known for penning “Lonesome Dove” and for co-writing the adapted screenplay of “Brokeback Mountain,” has died at the age of 84.
Amanda Lundberg, a spokeswoman for McMurtry, confirmed the author’s death to The New York Times.
The Hollywood Reporter also confirmed McMurtry’s death. A cause of death has not been disclosed.
McMurtry wrote 29 novels, three memoirs, two collections of essays and over 30 screenplays. His novel “Lonesome Dove” about two retired Texas Rangers moving cattle, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and was turned into a popular television mini-series starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones.
The writer’s first novel “Horseman, Pass By” was turned into 1963 film “Hud” starring Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal. McMurtry got his first Oscar nomination that he shared with director Peter Bogdanovich for adapting his 1966 book “The Last Picture Show.”
McMurtry also wrote the “Terms of Endearment” novel, which filmmaker James L. Brooks turned into an Oscar-winning film starring Jack Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine.
McMurtry won an Academy Award in 2006 for co-writing the adapted screenplay of “Brokeback Mountain” with his longtime collaborator Diana Ossana. The screenplay was based on a short story by Annie Proulx.
McMurtry is survived by wife Norma Faye Kesey and son, singer-songwriter James McMurtry.
