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Library Foundation Gala at AT&T Center
Imagine nights in front of a fire with Bill Wittliff. Besides his innate storytelling gifts, Wittliff has lived a life worth telling. The author, photographer and interpreter of things Texan doesn’t need to embellish. History will do.
Tom Staley and Bill Wittliff
Wittliff proved the star attraction for the Austin Public Library Friends Foundation benefit at the AT&T Center on Friday. The group supports the city’s centers of knowledge and education through volunteerism, advocacy and financial backing.
Tim Staley and Rose Smith
The theme for the evening was the publication of Larry McMurtry’s signal “Lonesome Dove.” Baby-faced Texas Monthly editor Jake Silverstein steered the guests through memories of the novel and miniseries. Singer-songwriter and novelist’s offspring, James McMurtry, sounding his Bob Dylan best, played a longish set.
Carrie Staley and Milton Tarver
In a novel manner, three troublemakers from the Rude Mechs read aloud a scene from “Lonesome Dove” that was not incorporated into the movie. Leave it to our gang to introduce images of sweaty, gritty sex to the ceremony.
Ociel Treviño and Melissa Martinez
The assembly finally turned its seats toward the dais, however, when novelist Stephen Harrigan asked a half dozen questions of Wittliff, who adapted “Lonesome Dove” for the small screen. The balding, reserved Harrigan gently poked — not in the Lorena Wood sense, children! — the hairy, gregarious Wittliff to elicit tales of writing, casting, producing and shooting the best miniseries of all time.
Shelly Gupta and Patty Gonzales
Wittliff’s repeated wish that the book remain “Texan” — and you would not believe the sacrileges suggested by Hollywood — reminded me that “Lonesome Dove” was one of first shows to reflect the actual people and land of the Lone Star state. Texas Monthly, usually on the forefront of such trends, just recently — after four and a half seasons — figured that out about “Friday Night Lights,” which also reflects our state with minute veracity.
I must admit, I don’t really know enough about what the library foundation does on the ground. This benefit, however, spoke for itself.
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By Franco in California
December 1, 2010 4:41 PM | Link to this
I don’t know what writer Bill Wittliff means when he says that he wanted the “Lonesome Dove” book to remain “Texan.” But as far as the people who produced the 1989 CBS TV mini-series, the credit goes largely to a very non-Texan outfit, Motown Productions and its executive, New York-born Suzanne de Passe. Motown? The company that produced soul music-themed movies such as “Lady Sings The Blues” (starring Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams) and those Jackson 5 TV specials in the early 1970s? Yes, that Motown.
Lonesome Dove, the novel, reportedly started out as a movie script written with John Wayne in mind as one of the lead characters. John Wayne supposedly had no interest in the script and potential movie. No surprise. Would John Wayne have agreed to star in movie with the words “lonesome” and “dove” anywhere in the title? Maybe a title like “The Lonesome Searchers” or “True Grit Is Lonesome” or "Lonesome At The Alamo" might have proved more to John Wayne’s liking.