A series of reminisces by McMurtry about his adventures in the screen trade. He's had a very long career as a screenwriter - Horseman Pass By not only sold to the movies, it became a hit, so even though McMurtry had little to do with it, he benefited and was given screenwriting jobs. Since then he managed to have a big hit every decade or so - Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove, Brokeback Mountain.
Buffs won't necessarily learn much new about Picture Show but I enjoyed glimpses of his random but long career: working for Lew Grade (including a stint on Raise the Titanic), various unmade films (including one on Wyoming lawman Ed Cantrell which sounded interesting).
He writes with great affection of good friend Diane Keaton, and collaborator Diana Ossana (who he started working with after his quadruple bypass and found he could still write novels but not the more disciplined sccripts). Moving account of Swifty Lazar who McMurtry liked but claims cost him $15 million with sloppy legal work post success of Lonesome Dove. He discusses his Dove sequel/prequel mini series, not in a huge amount of detail. There's talk of being on the Brokeback Mountain award trail. I wanted more - for instance more detail about his feud with Bogdanovich which he refers to, or if he had any thoughts why none of his lost Lonesome Dove books did that well as mini series - but this was very enjoyable.
Aside: he says George MacDonald Fraser wrote a script for the Lone Range film which I know he did but I thought that was a later one for John Landis, not for Lew Grade.
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