Translate

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Author Frank Harris

Regarding my posted short story with a villain named Frank Harris, the name just popped into my head as I pondered what to name the villain and there is no connection with that villain and the author, Frank Harris, to be clear about that. While I was writing the story, I remembered that I had read some of Harris' writings at some time and considered them to be worth another look.

Frank Harris (from Wikipedia) was born in Ireland  in 1856 and died in 1931 in France, and became a naturalized American citizen in 1921. He is remembered for the infamous My Life and Loves autobiography in four volumes, and this is the book I remembered reading, at least part(s) of it, and I recall it because it was mainlyto me an exposition of his sexuual escapades, although he did write about other parts of his life. The book was finished in 1922 and caused quite a stir when it was published due to its scandalous nature. He wrote other things, too, like Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions and a novel titled The Bomb. I wonder what that was about.

But the main reason I bring this up is the movie Cowboy which was adapted from his My Reminiscences as a Cowboy, and starring Jack Lemmon as Harris, released in 1958 but very limited. I saw the movie at some time, but for the life of me, I cannot remember anything about it. However, it is well described on Wikipedia and is available on a DVD which I will pick up the next time I visit Fry's Electronics and eventually get around to eyeballing. The plot centers around a cattle drive and a woman. Also starring is Glenn Ford as the "bad" guy and Anna Kashfi as the desired female. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Film Editing. It may be of interest to fans of of the Western genre.

2 comments:

  1. That's the strange thing about names, Oscar. I once wrote something that included a badass called Slade something-or-other. Out of curiosity I typed that name into a search engine, and discovered it was the name of a character in a blockbuster movie. Needless to say, I had to pick another name. As for Glenn Ford movie, I remember seeing him as a badass once, but I can't recall what it was called. Sounds like it might well have been 'Cowboy.'

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yep, about any name you pick is going to be the name of someone else with five billion people in the world. That movie had an odd combination - Jack Lemmon who was known for being a comedy actor and Glenn Ford, always the good guy.

    ReplyDelete