Legends of the Fall author Jim Harrison dead at 78

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published 28 March 2016

Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall and more than three dozen other books, died Saturday in Patagonia, Arizona. He was 78.

The cause of death is not yet known, a spokeswoman for Harrison's publisher, Grove Atlantic, said. Harrison was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed hunting, fishing, and spending time at a cabin close to the Michigan town where he grew up. His most famous work, Legends of the Fall, was a collection of three novellas, and Harrison worked on the script for the 1994 movie of the same name, starring Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins.

Harrison was also a poet and sports journalist, and was good friends with Jack Nicholson, sometimes even mistaken as his bodyguard. Harrison married his wife, Linda King, in 1959, and they had two daughters. Linda Harrison died last fall.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.