The Oscar-winning novelist’s intimate companion talks about her best friend: “We were like twins. We finished each other’s sentences.”
Diana Ossana is lying on her back, devastated by pain. She just lost her best friend and writing partner, Larry McMurtry, a man she took care of for open heart surgery in 1991 and a couple of other heart attacks, which after three years battling congestive heart failure, finally succumbed on Thursday at his home in Archer City, Texas. He was 84 years old. “Larry, despite his stubbornness and brilliance, kept moving forward,” said Ossana. “He continued. I feel like one of my members has been cut. We are all pretty devastated. “
Ossana picked up the phone to talk about her 28-year-old writing partner, with whom she shared the 2006 Screenplay Oscar for the adaptation of Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain”. “We were each other’s best friends,” she said. “Larry had been telling people to call me for the past 10 years or so: ‘Ask Diana, she knows me better than I do.’ From the beginning of our friendship, it seemed symbiotic, perhaps the way the twins feel. I am not a twin. But we would finish each other’s sentences. “
The screenwriter is a member of a large brotherhood of Texan friends McMurtry cultivated over the decades, from journalist Maureen Orth to the late production and costume designer Polly Platt, whom he met during the development and production of her husband, Peter Bogdanovich “The Last Picture Show ”(1971), the second Oscar-winning film adapted from one of McMurtry’s novels. (McMurtry chatted with Karina Longworth for her podcast “You Must Remember This” on Platt.)
Ellen Burstyn on “The Last Picture Show”
Columbia Pictures
Did he have romantic feelings for Ossana? “I don’t know, he may have felt that way about me,” she said. “The reason it lasted was that it didn’t become that. He used to talk to me about all women. At one point, I asked, ‘Do they know each other, all these women?’ His eyes got big. ‘No, oh no.’ He picked up the phone and spoke to five, six, seven before going to sleep. It wasn’t much talk, especially listening. He was fascinated by women. He thought they were one of the great mysteries in the universe. He had no interest in men. He said: ‘If you want to learn about emotion, you have to go to women.’ “
When he was writing his first novels, like “Horseman, Pass By” from 1961 (which became Oscar winner Martin Ritt “Hud”, starring Paul Newman) and “Leaving Cheyenne” from 1963 (which became his film from less successful, Sidney “Lovin ‘Molly” from Lumet), McMurtry married and divorced academic colleague Jo Scott, raised his son, musician James McMurtry, and never married again until 2011, when he impulsively married his former crush , Faye Kesey, the widow of her old Stanford friend and literary rival, Ken Kesey. The couple moved in with Ossana.
“I think Larry decided he wanted a company,” said Ossana. “We used to go there and visit them in Oregon. He called her, she showed up for a few days and he decided he wanted to get married. We all thought, ‘What? Same?’ They were elderly. I explained to people, ‘They don’t have much time for a two-year engagement. They want to continue with what is left of their lives. ‘Faye was quite devoted to Larry. “
“Ties of Tenderness”
Paramount movies
In 1991, Ossana pulled out the generally prolific novelist – who published 29 novels in his life, including the 1985 Pulitzer Prize winner “Lonesome Dove” (which yielded the beloved Emmy and Peabody 1989 wild west miniseries, starring Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, and Diane Lane), three memoirs, two collections of essays and more than 30 scripts – out of a depression that left him lying on his sofa in Tucson for a year. “He had open heart surgery,” she said. “I thought he recovered physically wonderfully after six weeks, but then darkness came over him. He couldn’t find the light. “
But he kept typing “Streets of Laredo” in his Hermes at the Tucson kitchen counter in Ossana, his darkest and saddest western romance. Simon and Schuster wanted the manuscript to be delivered on discs, so Ossana typed its pages into his computer. “While I was doing this, we talked a lot about it,” she said. “It happened. He came to trust me and my judgment.” McMurtry never made the transition to writing on a computer. “We tried about 10 years ago,” she said. touch of the keyboard. ”
But when the romance ended, McMurtry “stopped reading, writing, he was just looking at the mountains,” she said. “He was a person who read five newspapers a day and God knows how many books a week. Months, more than a year has passed. ”To get him out of her despondency, she told him a story about the Depression outlaw,” Pretty Boy Floyd “.
“He always got offers to write scripts and rejected them,” she said. “He was fascinated by the difference between mythology and reality. There was a lot of that in the Pretty Boy Floyd story. He pleased me at first, but halfway through I could see something shining in his eyes. Certainly, he said, ‘I will write, but only if you write with me.’ “
That’s how Ossana brought McMurtry back to life. Writing together “was very easy, because Larry and I finished each other’s sentences, our feelings and our thoughts,” she said. “This does not mean that we do not argue much. But he was never stingy or threatening. “
Together, they wrote two novels, “Pretty Boy Floyd” and “Zeke and Ned”, and countless scripts and teleplays. They adapted their continuations from “Lonesome Dove” “Streets of Laredo” (1995), “Dead Man’s Walk (1996) and” Comanche Moon “(2008) as a miniseries. And, in a memorable way, Ossana convinced McMurtry to co-write a screenplay for Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” novel. The writers convinced the reluctant Proulx to let them adapt their touching western gay romance, which after many false starts ended up being made with Ang Lee directing Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger. The film was a success and won three Oscars in 2006, including Adapted Screenplay, notoriously losing the Oscar for Best Picture to “Crash”.
“Brokeback Mountain”
Focus features
The secret to McMurtry’s extraordinary success was his characters. His books and film adaptations were not guided by the plot. “Terms of Tenderness,” which new writer and director James L. Brooks adapted for the screen, worked so well (winning five Oscars) because audiences were drawn to Houston’s imperious widow Aurora Greenaway (Shirley MacLaine) and her fervent devotion his less attractive and down-to-earth daughter, Emma (Debra Winger), and his delightful flirtation with former astronaut Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson). (“I love you, too, boy.”) “‘Lonesome Dove’ was adopted because the characters were so powerful,” said Ossana. “They overcome the myth. He wrote the most realistic attractive characters, good and bad, that the actors want to represent and people want to love. “
Sitting here thinking about Larry McMurtry’s greatness.
Among the best writers of all time. I remember when he told me to adapt the “Terms” – his refusal to let me admire him. And the fact that he was personally working at the register of his rare book store while he was doing it.
– James l. streams (@canyonjim) March 26, 2021
McMurtry leaves behind Booked Up, his only surviving bookstore in Archer City, to be acquired by his manager Khristal Collins, as well as a personal library crammed with over 30,000 volumes. It will take some time to figure out what to do with several unpublished novels and shorter writings, which include “62 Women”, a memoir about McMurtry’s relationships over the years and “Night at the White House” about a dinner at Reagan McMurtry’s state attended with Prince Charles, Princess Diana and John Travolta.
“Joe Bell”
Courtesy of TIFF
More recently, Ossana and McMurtry collaborated on the Toronto 2020 debut script, “Joe Bell” (2021, Solstice Studios), starring Mark Wahlberg, which was originally developed as a project in 2015 for director Cary Fukunaga, who went on to do the James Bond film “There is no time to die.” It is based on the true story of a working class father of a gay son who fights against bullying by taking a walk around the country. “This script languished, as scripts do,” said Ossana. “It was chosen by producers who found Ray Green to direct it.”
There are stacks of unproduced scripts. “Many scripts have not been made,” said Ossana. “They are on shelves everywhere.”
Larry McMurtry was a great storyteller. I learned from him, which was important. I was entertained by him, which was ALL important.
RIP, cowboy.
Knight, come by.– Stephen King (@StephenKing) March 26, 2021
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