R.I.P.: Kevin Jarre (1954–2011)
Per an obituary in the LAT:
Kevin Jarre, a screenwriter steeped in American history who wrote the Civil War saga “Glory” and the western “Tombstone,” died unexpectedly of heart failure April 3 at his Santa Monica home, said his aunt, Patty Briley Bean. He was 56.
Jarre had been a self-described “Civil War freak” since childhood, when he received toy soldiers from the era for Christmas.
His interest in the 54th Massachusetts, a regiment that was one of first black units during the Civil War, was piqued when a friend, Lincoln Kirstein, observed that a photograph of Jarre on horseback resembled a statue of Col. Robert Gould Shaw, the regiment’s white leader.
Moved to research the 54th, Jarre read the colonel’s letters and two books, Kirstein’s “Lay This Laurel” and Peter Burchard’s “One Gallant Rush,” which became source material for the 1989 film “Glory.”
“I never thought I could interest anybody in it,” Jarre told The Times in 1990. “A Civil War epic, about black people? But I’d got really attached to the story…. I’d end up in tears when I got through writing.”
The script initially engendered controversy and was called racist, partly “because Jarre is white and partly because the language is outspoken and the characterizations not invariably idealized,” Charles Champlin, then The Times’ arts editor, wrote in 1990.
“Glory,” which was directed by Edward Zwick, went on to win three Academy Awards, including one for actor Denzel Washington. The New York Times review praised Jarre’s “good, lean screenplay.”