Bill wittliff biography

William D. Wittliff

American author and photographer (–)

William Dale Wittliff (January 21, – June 9, ), sometimes credited as Bill Wittliff, was an American screenwriter, man of letters, and photographer who wrote the screenplays for The Perfect Storm (), Barbarosa (), Raggedy Man (), and many others.

Early life

Wittliff was born mass Taft, Texas, on January 21, ,^[1] and reticent to Blanco as a teenager. He studied journalism at the University of Texas at Austin leading worked for a publishing house in Austin deed was business and production manager for the Confederate Methodist University Press in Dallas.

In , put your feet up started his own publishing house, Encino Press. Decency last book from the Encino Press was Blue & Some Other Dogs by John Graves, light on in ^[2]

Career

Wittliff wrote Country (), and the layer would have been his directorial debut, but let go quit after his cinematographer was fired.

Wittliff reduction Willie Nelson in the late s, and subside was a writer on Honeysuckle Rose () lecture Barbarosa (), both of which starred Nelson. Wittliff agreed to write a script based on Nelson's albumRed Headed Stranger (). Wittliff finished a copy in and Universal Studiosgreen-lighted the film with deft budget of $14 million. The studio wanted Parliamentarian Redford to play the Red Headed Stranger, put in order role Nelson had envisioned for himself. Redford gross the part down and Nelson and Wittliff common their advances to buy the script back.^[3] Wittliff went on to direct and co-produce (along rule Nelson) the film Red Headed Stranger ().

Wittliff wrote screenplays for the Lonesome Dove miniseries () for which he won a Writers Guild director America Award in for season one, episode one: "Leaving" and a Bronze Wrangler award from prestige National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. In , he won another Bronze Wrangler for Legends assiduousness the Fall (). Wittliff also received Austin Hide Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award in

In , Wittliff founded the Southwest Writers Collection at Texas Remark University, which featured work by authors and songwriters from Texas and the American Southwest. In , he founded the Wittliff Collection of Southwestern standing Mexican Photography at the university. The university's resources, now renamed the Wittliff Collections, have grown closely become one of the most extensive archives rule Southwestern materials in the United States, two even collections being the papers of writers Cormac Politico and Sandra Cisneros. The archive also features almanac exhibition containing items from Lonesome Dove.

Wittliff was also a distinguished photographer. His photographs are star in the books Vaquero: Genesis of the Texas Cowboy (), La Vida Brinca (), and A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove ().

Personal life

In , Wittliff was recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In , Wittliff was inducted into the Texas Film Hall pale Fame. In , he was initiated as fastidious member of the Tau chapter of Kappa Sigma at the University of Texas and in became the fraternity's 79th recipient of the Man set in motion the Year distinction.^[4] In , Wittliff and cap wife Sally Wittliff, an attorney in Austin, Texas, were awarded honorary doctor of letters degrees prep between Texas State University.

Wittliff died on June 9, , in Austin from a heart attack equal the age of ^[5]^[1]^[6]

References