The film received 10 nominations, including best actor for Bridges, and brought new attention to Portis and his novel, which topped the trade paperback list of The New York Times. In 2010, the Coen brothers worked up a less glossy, more faithful 'True Grit,' featuring Jeff Bridges as Rooster and newcomer Hallie Steinfeld as Mattie. Rooster was so strong a character that a new generation of filmgoers and Oscar voters welcomed him back. The role brought Wayne his first Academy Award and was revived by the actor, much less successfully, in the sequel 'Rooster Cogburn.' The novel was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1968 and was soon adapted (and softened) as a film showcase for John Wayne, who starred as Rooster Cogburn, the drunken, one-eyed marshal Mattie enlists to find the killer. The public knew Portis best for 'True Grit,' the quest of Arkansas teen Mattie Ross to avenge her father's murder. In 'Gringos,' an expatriate in Mexico with a taste for order finds himself amid hippies, end-of-the-world cultists and disappearing friends.

'The Dog of the South' finds one Ray Midge driving from Arkansas to Honduras in search of his wife, his credit cards and his Ford Torino. In 'Norwood,' an ex-Marine from Texas heads East in a suspicious car to collect a suspicious debt, but winds up on a bus with a circus dwarf, a chicken and a girl he just met. In a Portis novel, usually set in the South and south of the border, characters embarked on journeys that took the most unpredictable detours.ĥ new books not to miss: ‘Real Life’ by Brandon Taylor, Charles Finch mystery 'The Last Passenger'īook review: 'Franklin & Washington' an engaging history of the duo that launched America

Portis saw the world from the ground up, from bars and shacks and trailer homes, and few spun wilder and funnier stories. and Larry McMurtry, and he was often compared to Mark Twain for his plainspoken humor and wry perspective.

His fans included Tom Wolfe, Roy Blount Jr. His brother, Jonathan Portis, told The Associated Press that he died in a hospice in Little Rock, Arkansas, his longtime residence.Ĭharles Portis was among the most admired authors to nearly vanish from public consciousness in his own lifetime.

Portis, a former newspaper reporter who apparently learned enough to swear off talking to the media, had been suffering from Alzheimer's in recent years. NEW YORK (AP) - Novelist Charles Portis, a favorite among critics and writers for such shaggy dog stories as 'Norwood' and 'Gringos' and a bounty for Hollywood whose droll, bloody Western 'True Grit' was a best-seller twice adapted into Oscar nominated films, died Monday at age 86.

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