Larry McMurtry

About Larry McMurtry

Who is it?: Novelist
Birth Day: June 03, 1936
Birth Place: Archer City, United States
Education: University of North Texas Rice University
Occupation: Novelist, screenwriter, essayist, bookseller
Years active: 1961–present

Larry McMurtry

Larry McMurtry was born on June 03, 1936 in Archer City, United States, is Novelist. 'Pulitzer Prize'-winning author Larry McMurtry is known for his famous literary works like, 'Terms of Endearment', 'The Last Picture Show', 'Lonesome Dove', and ‘Horseman, Pass By'. Several of his writings have served as inspiration for American feature films and television series. Movies like 'Hud', 'Lovin' Molly', 'Texasville', and 'The Evening Star', amongst others, have been based on his novels. He has also found success with writing for the screen, be it for the television or for films. 'Montana' is one such work written for the small screen, while 'Falling from Grace', and 'Brokeback Mountain' are scripts meant for the movies. 'Brokeback Mountain', directed by the famous director, Ang Lee, in fact, was considered to be extremely well-written, thus bringing home for the author, the two prestigious honours, 'Academy Award' and 'Golden Globe'. He is also known for 'Terms of Endearment', a storyline that bagged the 'Oscar' for the movie adaptation. This prolific writer is also famous for his bookstore, 'Booked Up', which, with its huge collection of rare books, has earned him the reputation of being an ardent book-collector. He has been the recipient of several awards, the most significant one being the 'Pulitzer Prize' for his novel 'Lonesome Dove'
Larry McMurtry is a member of Writers

Does Larry McMurtry Dead or Alive?

As per our current Database, Larry McMurtry is still alive (as per Wikipedia, Last update: May 10, 2020).

🎂 Larry McMurtry - Age, Bio, Faces and Birthday

Currently, Larry McMurtry is 88 years, 5 months and 20 days old. Larry McMurtry will celebrate 89rd birthday on a Tuesday 3rd of June 2025. Below we countdown to Larry McMurtry upcoming birthday.

Days
Hours
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Popular As Larry McMurtry
Occupation Writers
Age 87 years old
Zodiac Sign Cancer
Born June 03, 1936 (Archer City, United States)
Birthday June 03
Town/City Archer City, United States
Nationality United States

🌙 Zodiac

Larry McMurtry’s zodiac sign is Cancer. According to astrologers, the sign of Cancer belongs to the element of Water, just like Scorpio and Pisces. Guided by emotion and their heart, they could have a hard time blending into the world around them. Being ruled by the Moon, phases of the lunar cycle deepen their internal mysteries and create fleeting emotional patterns that are beyond their control. As children, they don't have enough coping and defensive mechanisms for the outer world, and have to be approached with care and understanding, for that is what they give in return.

🌙 Chinese Zodiac Signs

Larry McMurtry was born in the Year of the Rat. Those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Rat are quick-witted, clever, charming, sharp and funny. They have excellent taste, are a good friend and are generous and loyal to others considered part of its pack. Motivated by money, can be greedy, is ever curious, seeks knowledge and welcomes challenges. Compatible with Dragon or Monkey.

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Biography/Timeline

1942

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. In 1942, when his cousin Robert Hilburn on his way to enlist for World War II stopped by the ranch house and left a box containing 19 books, he began to read. The books were standard boys' adventure tales of the 1930s, and he read them to tatters. The first book he read was Sergeant Silk: The Prairie Scout.

1958

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).

1960

During the 1960–1961 academic year, McMurtry was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at the Stanford University Creative Writing Center, where he studied the craft of fiction under Frank O'Connor and Malcolm Cowley alongside a number of other Writers, including Ken Kesey, Peter S. Beagle, and Gurney Norman; Stegner himself was on sabbatical in Europe during McMurtry's fellowship year.

1962

McMurtry has won the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters on three occasions: in 1962, for Horseman, Pass By; in 1967, for The Last Picture Show, which he shared with Tom Pendleton's The Iron Orchard; and in 1986, for Lonesome Dove. He has also won the Amon G. Carter award for periodical prose in 1966, for Texas: Good Times Gone or Here Again?. In 1986, McMurtry received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. The Helmerich Award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.

1963

McMurtry and Kesey remained friends after McMurtry left California and returned to Texas to take a year-long composition instructorship at Texas Christian University. In 1963, he returned to Rice University, where he served as a lecturer in English until 1969; his initial students were entertained with stories of Hollywood and the filming of Hud for which he was consulting. In 1964, Kesey's famous cross-country trip with his Merry Pranksters in the day-glo-painted school bus Furthur, chronicled in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, included a stop at McMurtry's home in Houston. That same year, McMurtry was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

1969

While at Stanford, McMurtry became a rare-book scout, and during his years in Houston, managed a book store there called the Bookman. In 1969, he moved to the Washington, DC, area, and in 1970 with two partners started a bookshop in Georgetown which he named Booked Up. In 1988, he opened another Booked Up in Archer City, which is one of the largest used bookstores in the United States, carrying between 400,000 and 450,000 titles. Citing economic pressures from internet bookselling, McMurtry came close to shutting down the Archer City store in 2005, but chose to keep it open after an outpouring of public support.

2006

In 2006, he was cowinner (with Diana Ossana) of both the Best Screenplay Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Brokeback Mountain. He accepted his Oscar wearing jeans and Cowboy boots along with his dinner jacket, and used his speech to promote books by reminding his audience that "Brokeback Mountain" was a short story by E. Annie Proulx before it was a movie. In his Golden Globe acceptance speech, he paid tribute to his Swiss-made Hermes 3000 typewriter.

2008

McMurtry described his method for writing novels in Books: A Memoir. He says that from his first novel on he would get up early and dash off five pages of narrative. At the time of publication of the memoir in 2008, he stated that it was still his method, although by then he was up to dashing off 10 pages a day. He also writes every day, ignoring holidays and weekends.

2011

His former wife, Jo Scott McMurtry, an English professor, is also the author of five books. Their son, James McMurtry, and grandson Curtis McMurtry are singer/songwriters and guitarists. On May 5, 2011, The Dallas Morning News reported that McMurtry married Norma Faye Kesey on April 29 in a civil ceremony in Archer City. She is the widow of Writer Ken Kesey.

2012

In early 2012, McMurtry decided to downsize and sell off the greater portion of his inventory. He made the decision as he felt the collection was a liability for his heirs. The auction was conducted on August 10 and 11, 2012, and was overseen by Addison and Sarova Auctioneers of Macon, Georgia. This epic book auction sold books by the shelf, and was billed as "The Last Booksale" in keeping with the title of McMurtry's The Last Picture Show. Dealers, Collectors, and gawkers came out en masse from all over the country to witness this historic auction. As stated by Mr. McMurtry on the weekend of the sale, "I've never seen that many people lined up in Archer City, and I'm sure I never will again."

2013

McMurtry is perhaps best known for the film adaptations of his work, especially Hud (from the novel Horseman, Pass By), starring Paul Newman and Patricia Neal; the Peter Bogdanovich–directed The Last Picture Show; James L. Brooks's Terms of Endearment, which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture (1984); and Lonesome Dove, which became a popular television miniseries starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall.

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