Alan Le May

Alan Le May
Born(1899-06-03)June 3, 1899
Indianapolis, Indiana
DiedApril 27, 1964(1964-04-27) (aged 64)
OccupationWriter (novelist)
NationalityAmerican
Period20th century
GenreWestern fiction

Alan Brown Le May (June 3, 1899 – April 27, 1964) was an American novelist and screenplay writer.

He is most remembered for two classic Western novels, The Searchers (1954) and The Unforgiven (1957).[1] They were adapted into the motion pictures The Searchers (1956; starring John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter, and directed by John Ford) and The Unforgiven (1960; starring Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn, and directed by John Huston).

He also wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for North West Mounted Police (1940; directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and starring Gary Cooper and Paulette Goddard), Reap the Wild Wind (1942; directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and starring Ray Milland, John Wayne and Paulette Goddard), and Blackbeard the Pirate (1952; directed by Raoul Walsh, and starring Robert Newton and Linda Darnell). He wrote the original source novel for Along Came Jones (1945; starring Gary Cooper and Loretta Young), as well as a score of other screenplays and an assortment of other novels and short stories. Le May wrote and directed High Lonesome (1950) starring John Drew Barrymore and Chill Wills and featuring Jack Elam. Le May also wrote and produced (but did not direct) Quebec (1951), also starring John Drew Barrymore.

  1. ^ Herzberg, Bob (2008). Savages and Saints: The Changing Image of American Indians in Westerns, pp. 164-65. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.