Winston Groom, the American author best known for writing the 1986 novel Forrest Gump, died in September 2020 at the age of 77 near Fairhope along Mobile Bay.
Born in Washington, D.C., on March 23, 1943, Groom grew up in Mobile, Alabama, where his father practiced law. He initially planned to follow his father into the legal profession while studying at the University of Alabama, but shifted his ambitions toward writing after editing the campus literary magazine. He graduated in 1965 and soon enlisted in the United States Army, serving with the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam between 1966 and 1967.
From Vietnam Veteran to Washington Star Reporter
Following his military service, Groom worked as a reporter for the Washington Star, covering police and court systems. At the encouragement of southern writer Willie Morris, he moved to New York and crossed paths with figures such as Truman Capote. He left journalism in 1976 and published his first novel, Better Times Than These, in 1978, which drew on his infantry experiences in Vietnam. His 1980 novel As Summers Die earned the Southern Library Association fiction award and was later adapted into a television movie. With Duncan Spencer, he also co-authored Conversations with the Enemy, an account centered on prisoner of war Robert Garwood that was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction.
Writing the Original Forrest Gump Novel in Six Weeks
Groom returned to Mobile in 1985 and drew on a childhood story he heard from his father to draft Forrest Gump in roughly six weeks. Published in 1986, the novel presented a protagonist who was larger, coarser, and more mathematically gifted than the character moviegoers eventually met. While the book received generally favorable reviews, some critics found its plot and characters thin.
Director Robert Zemeckis, screenwriter Eric Roth, and actor Tom Hanks adapted the story into the 1994 feature film, which won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The cinematic version softened the character’s rough edges and trimmed much of his original backstory, though it eventually propelled the novel to a 1.7-million-copy bestseller status.
Paramount Accounting Disputes and Subsequent Historical Works
Despite the film grossing $661 million globally, Paramount Pictures accounted for the project as a $62 million loss in 1995, leaving Groom with zero backend profits from his original deal of $350,000 plus three percent of net profits. Groom threatened a lawsuit, which was resolved that summer through a settlement and a seven-figure contract for the film rights to a sequel, Gump and Co.
After the movie’s release, Groom published a steady stream of tie-in material, including quote books and cookbooks, alongside the sequel novel Gump and Co., but shifted his primary focus toward popular history. His subsequent non-fiction titles included Shrouds of Glory, A Storm in Flanders, 1942: The Year That Tried Men’s Souls, Vicksburg, 1863, and The Aviators. The state of Alabama awarded him the Harper Lee Award in 2011 and inducted him into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame in 2018. At the time of his death, he was awaiting the publication of his final book, The Patriots.
Related reading