3/25/2023 0 Comments Winston groom“I didn’t know what in the hell to think about it,” Groom said. Groom had finished the book within six weeks, written in Gump’s first-person garbled, misspelt Alabamian, and sent the manuscript to editor Willy Morris. “I didn’t have any notes, I didn’t have any research, I just sat down everyday and thought, 'What’s he going to do today?'” “It never happened before and I don’t think it’ll happen again,” he later said. He has often commented that the book “wrote itself” and came from his “lizard brain”, an instinctive, primal part of the mind. The story, he says, bypassed his conscious mind to come straight out of the fingers. Within six weeks he’d written the entire book. I thought that’s a nice story.”īy midnight Groom had written the first chapter. So the kids in the neighbourhood decided they were going to take this kid under their wing. “And one day this boy’s mother bought a piano… within two days this gorgeous piano music came wafting out of this house. “The kids would chase him and tease him and throw sticks at him and so forth,” Groom recalled. The idea had come from a story Groom’s father had told him, when reminiscing about a boy with learning difficulties who he’d grown up with in Mobile during the early 1900s. He wrote another three books before he started work on Forrest Gump. He did a 13-month tour of duty in Vietnam and worked as a journalist with The Washington Star for eight years, before he quit to write his first book – Vietnam-set novel Better Times Than These. Winston Groom grew up in Mobile, Alabama (also Forrest’s hometown in the original book) and attended the University of Alabama. Though he’s not nearly as likable: swearier, hornier, and prone to being led astray by women, money, and marijuana. The original Gump was an idiot savant – an idiot by his own admission, but also a brilliant mind for advanced mathematical equations, musical instruments, and chess. In fact, Groom has envisioned John Goodman in the role instead of the comparatively slight Hanks. The original Gump was 6’6” and 240lbs of solid man. The character belonged to the audience and Hanks as much as he did Winston Groom.įorrest had also undergone significant changes in his eight-year journey from page to screen (in development hell terms, the equivalent of Forrest’s epic run across the United States). Gump – a slow-witted boy turned accidental hero, sports star, and shrimping millionaire – was immediately accepted as an icon of wholesome Americana. His nuggets of doe-eyed wisdom (alongside the box of chocolates zinger, Gumpisms such as “Stupid is as stupid does”) and biggest moments (“Run, Forest! Run!”) became oft-repeated, universally-recognised lines from the cultural lexicon.Īnd though Tom Hanks already had an Academy Award win under his belt, having won Best Actor for Philadelphia, it was Forrest Gump that turned him into Hollywood’s most lovable A-list heavyweight. Winston Groom – who has died, aged 77 – relinquished ownership of his character swiftly after the film’s release in July 1994. “It’s on everybody’s tongue, the box of chocolates business.” I hate chocolates!” But the author would have to concede that the reimagined line of dialogue, like the film’s liberal interpretation of his story, was a success. “Well, what do I know? Everywhere I go people send me chocolates. “Why the hell didn’t they use my line? Why are they using this line?” said Groom, interviewed after the film’s release. Forget Forrest Gump’s famous line, “Life is like a box of chocolates.” The real line – or the original line, at least, from the 1986 novel by Winston Groom – is “Bein an idiot is no box of chocolates.”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |