Name Michael Blake | Role Author Siblings Dan Webb | |
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Born July 5, 1945 ( 1945-07-05 ) Fort Bragg, North Carolina Movies Dances with Wolves, Stacy's Knights, National Lampoon's Senior Trip Books Dances with Wolves, The Holy Road, Marching to Valhalla, Indian Yell, Into the Stars Similar People Jim Wilson, Dean Semler, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Kevin Costner | ||
Michael Lennox Blake (July 5, 1945 – May 2, 2015) was an American author, best known for the film adaptation of his novel Dances with Wolves, for which he won an Oscar.
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Biography
Early in his life, Blake's family lived in Texas, before moving to Southern California, where they moved frequently. He began writing when he was stationed at Walker Air Force Base, when he wrote for the base newspaper. He studied journalism at the University of New Mexico, and later studied at a film school, in Berkeley, California. He also attended Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. In the late 1970s he moved to Los Angeles; during the 1980s only one of his screenplays was produced, called Stacy’s Knights. The movie starred Kevin Costner, who later encouraged him to continue to write, and introduced him to key figures in the Hollywood Industry. Dances with Wolves was the result; Kevin Costner then asked him to write a screenplay for the film based on the novel. He went on to do humanitarian work, and continued to write.
Michael Blake has three brothers, James A. Webb, David Webb and Dan Webb, former principal of John Muir High School in Pasadena, California.
He died on May 2, 2015, after a long illness in Tucson, Arizona.