TUSooner
3/22/2006, 09:38 AM
I'm sorry he's dead.His books are a blend of Okla-homey's history and Dean's cowboy poetry, with a litle Mickey Spillane tossed in. Yep, he wrote good, and had ties Oklahoma and OU, too. Go read some of his stuff today.
Today is the birthday of Louis L'Amour (1908-1988), prolific writer of popular novels, mostly westerns. He was born to literate parents in Jamestown, ND. There, and later in OK, L’Amour met and learned from people who had lived on the frontier and in the “wild west” and who had known characters like Billy the Kid and Marshal Bill Tilghman. From the age of fifteen, L'Amour worked at a variety of jobs: boxer (winning 51 of 59 fights), circus hand, lumberjack, seaman, asbestos miner (a job he linked to his death), and even elephant handler. In World War II he served in a tank destroyer unit in Europe. He traveled in the Far East, China, and Africa in the 1930s and then lived with his parents on a small farm near Choctaw, OK. He took some creative writing courses at the University of OK, then moved to Los Angeles. L'Amour wrote five pages a day, including Sundays and holidays. At his death, it was estimated he had written 101 books of all kinds, including non-fiction and poetry. Some of his works that made it to the big or small screen include “Hondo” (a John Wayne western), “Shalako” (Sean Connery & Brigitte Bardot), “How the West was Won” (cast of thousands) and a series about the Sackett family (featuring Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott - possessor of one of the Greatest Moustaches of All Time). One early critic for the "Daily Oklahoman" wrote: “[L’Amour] has the three things which it takes to make a writer: a love for words, industry, and something to say.”
Today is the birthday of Louis L'Amour (1908-1988), prolific writer of popular novels, mostly westerns. He was born to literate parents in Jamestown, ND. There, and later in OK, L’Amour met and learned from people who had lived on the frontier and in the “wild west” and who had known characters like Billy the Kid and Marshal Bill Tilghman. From the age of fifteen, L'Amour worked at a variety of jobs: boxer (winning 51 of 59 fights), circus hand, lumberjack, seaman, asbestos miner (a job he linked to his death), and even elephant handler. In World War II he served in a tank destroyer unit in Europe. He traveled in the Far East, China, and Africa in the 1930s and then lived with his parents on a small farm near Choctaw, OK. He took some creative writing courses at the University of OK, then moved to Los Angeles. L'Amour wrote five pages a day, including Sundays and holidays. At his death, it was estimated he had written 101 books of all kinds, including non-fiction and poetry. Some of his works that made it to the big or small screen include “Hondo” (a John Wayne western), “Shalako” (Sean Connery & Brigitte Bardot), “How the West was Won” (cast of thousands) and a series about the Sackett family (featuring Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott - possessor of one of the Greatest Moustaches of All Time). One early critic for the "Daily Oklahoman" wrote: “[L’Amour] has the three things which it takes to make a writer: a love for words, industry, and something to say.”