Willingham, Calder

▪ 1996

      U.S. novelist and screenwriter (b. Dec. 22, 1922, Atlanta, Ga.—d. Feb. 19, 1995, Laconia, N.H.), was lionized at the age of 24 after the publication of the explicit End as a Man (1947), a graphic and lurid account of life at a southern military school resembling South Carolina's Citadel, where Willingham was enrolled for one year. The novel, which achieved commercial success after the publisher was unsuccessfully prosecuted for obscenity, was made into a film called The Strange One (1957). Willingham was grouped with such other young writers as Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and Truman Capote, all of whom employed the same gritty realism. His success was not repeated in his other novels, however, and he explored that theme in his last book, The Big Nickel (1975). In later years Willingham gained success as a screenwriter with such credits as Paths of Glory (1957), The Vikings (1958), One-Eyed Jacks (1961), The Graduate (1967), Little Big Man (1970), and Rambling Rose (1991), an adaptation of his same-titled 1972 novel. Shortly before his death he finished an original screenplay for Steven Spielberg.

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