Author of Forrest Gump, which prompted iconic movie, dies
Winston Groom, the writer whose novel Forrest Gump was made into a six-Oscar winning 1994 movie that became a soaring pop cultural phenomenon, has died at the age of 77.
Mayor Karin Wilson of Fairhope, Alabama, said in a message on social media that Groom died in that south Alabama town. “While he will be remembered for creating Forrest
Gump, Winston Groom was a talented journalist and noted author of American history. Our hearts and prayers are extended to his family,” Alabama governor Kay Ivey said.
Forrest Gump was the improbable tale of a slow-witted but mathematically gifted man who was a participant or witness to key points of 20th Century history - from Alabama segregationist governor George Wallace’s “stand at the schoolhouse door”, to meetings with presidents.
It was the best known book by Groom, who grew up in Mobile, Alabama, and graduated from the University of Alabama in 1965.
He wrote 16 books, fiction and non-fiction. One of them, Conversations with the Enemy, about an American prisoner of war in Vietnam accused of collaboration, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
It was Forrest Gump - and the success of the 1994 movie starring Tom Hanks in the iconic role of Gump, as well as
Sally Field and Gary Sinise - that earned him widespread fame and some financial success.
The movie became deeply embedded in the American psyche and has remained an enduring TV staple and huge cultural phenomenon since.
The film dominated the 1995 Academy Awards, winning six Oscars including best picture, best director for Robert Zemeckis and best actor for Hanks. It was 1994’s No. 2 grossing film at the box office, second only to The Lion King.