Get Shorty writer Elmore Leonard passes away at 87

The prominent novelist and screenwriter, Elmore John Leonard Jr., died on August 20 at the age of 87. He breathed his last at his Detroit residence after suffering from a stroke a few weeks ago, as revealed by his researcher, Gregg Sutter. He was a bestselling novelist whose several works have been adapted to the big screen with titles like Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, Out of Sight and 3:10 to Yuma.

Leonard’s novels were best-sellers during the mid-1980s and he was one of the most popular names among the crime-thriller readers. He had got several admirers in Hollywood too like George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Aerosmith, Saul Bellow and Stephen King. His lively characters and flowing dialogues made his novels appropriate for the film-adaptations. The FX series Justified, starring Timothy Olyphant, was based on his story Fire in the Hole. Leonard was also behind the screenplay of films like Clint Eastwood starrer Joe Kidd in 1972 and Charles Bronson’s Mr. Majestyk in 1974. His novels became almost regular ones on the big screen during the 1990s. The critically acclaimed Hollywood satire Get Shorty in 1995 was followed by Quentin Tarantino’s adaptation of his Rum Punch as Jackie Brown in 1997. While Get Shorty starred John Travolta, Gene Hackman and Rene Russo, Jackie Brown had faces like Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson and Robert de Niro.

The following year was another successful one for Leonard due to director Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight, starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. After Scott Frank bagged an Oscar nomination for his adaptation of Leonard’s novel, he said in an interview, “The great thing about Elmore Leonard’s stories is that they are already very cinematic in that they have great dialogue and situations.” Other films which were also adapted from Leonard’s novels are Hombre, Valdez is Coming, The Big Bounce and The Tonto Woman. Earlier in 1980 he wrote the script for the TV movie High Noon Part II: The Return of Will Kane and NBC’s Desperado. He also worked as an executive producer on two recent adaptations of his novels which are not released yet, Freaky Deaky and Life of Crime, the latter being slated to premiere at Toronto Film Festival. Last year he received an honorary National Book Award, joining the league of Philip Roth, Norman Mailer and Arthur Miller. Married for three times, Leonard is survived by five children and his wife for last two decades, Christine Kent.