Larry McMurtry - Interviewed

The Daily Beast sits down with the celebrated author.

From the piece...

It’s hard for many of us to imagine having written as iconic a novel as Lonesome Dove, winner of the 1985 Pulitzer Prize. How has the legacy of that book affected your career and what you have chosen to write since?

I don’t think about Lonesome Dove very much or very often. It only affected what I chose to write afterwards in terms of the other three books in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy. I would have written the rest of my books, whether or not I’d written Lonesome Dove. I’ve never re-read Lonesome Dove, or given it any real thought.

Many of your books, from Lonesome Dove to Horseman, Pass By, have been adapted for the screen. [Horseman, Pass By was adapted as Hud.] What are your thoughts on the screen versions of your work?

I’ve been very lucky to have mostly fine movies made from my work—most, if not all. I wasn’t crazy about Hud, because of the slaughter scene, mainly. Melvyn Douglas was very good, and so was Brandon De Wilde. Patricia Neal won an Oscar and she deserved it, she was wonderful. I felt Paul Newman was a little too mannered, a little too “actor’s studio.”

Lovin’ Molly [adapted from Leaving Cheyenne was not good. Sidney Lumet shot most of it in New Jersey, when the story actually takes place in Texas. There’s something to be said for location. The cowboys were dressed in bib overalls, which just about killed my father.