Charles portis books ranked

Norwood, Gringos novelist's works were adapted into Oscar-nominated movies. Author Charles Portis, whose best-selling western novel True Grit was twice adapted into Oscar-contending movies starring John Wayne and Jeff Bridges , has died at age Portis' brother, Jonathan Portis, told the Associated Press the reclusive novelist had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in recent years, and died Monday in a hospice in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Born in , Portis grew up as a fan of comic books and movies, and credited his time in the Marines with allowing him time to read and hone his love for writing.

Charles portis quotes

He later graduated from the University of Arkansas in with a degree in journalism before working as a night police reporter for the Memphis Commercial Appeal and as the London bureau chief for the New York Herald Tribune, a career which saw him covering abuse at the hands of police during the civil rights movement and interviewing subjects like Malcolm X and J.

After leaving the newspaper in , Portis finished his first novel, Norwood — about an ex-Marine from Texas traveling across the country to collect a debt — which was published two years later and adapted as a television movie starring Glen Campbell and Joe Namath. Portis published his best-known work, the bloody western True Grit , as a Saturday Evening Post serial in , with the film version going on to win Wayne his first Oscar for Best Actor.

The film followed an Arkansas teen, Mattie Ross Kim Darby , who enlists the help of a drunken, one-eyed marshal, Rooster Cogburn Wayne to hunt down her father's killer. Infamously wary of the press, Portis gave few interviews throughout his later career, which saw him settling in Little Rock, where he reportedly worked on an ultimately unreleased novel for years.

His last published book, Gringos , was printed in as his fifth and final work, though he continued to published short-form fiction in The Atlantic throughout the s. He was considered a regular around Little Rock, with the AP reporting locals knew him for driving a pickup truck around town while also enjoying an occasional beer.

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