# Writer Elmore Leonard has died at age 87 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 20, 2013, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716 "2013-08-20T14:56:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/21 "2013-08-20T22:15:25Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Yes. And with luck, I will go to my grave with that being the only Jennifer Lopez film I’ve ever seen. “You wanted to tussle. We tussled.” ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/22 "2013-08-20T22:47:59Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > I was sorry to hear about this. He was one of those people who achieved an escape from the concept of time, in a way: his work is interesting and relevant to people of any generation, and he himself never seemed to be “an old man” despite reaching 87. I agree with this. His style, his characters, exist in a self-contained space. Their interactions, their grimy humanity with enough plot to keep things in motion, has timeless appeal. Of all the novelists I have burned through with crushes and obsessions great and small, Elmore Leonard is one who stuck with me. Sometimes his seemingly-easy approach was simply easy - his too-funny period with Maximum Bob and a few like that; leave it to Hiaason. But damn when he got it right, which was consistent most of the time - huge fun to inhabit. I remember first reading _City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit_ and thinking “this is some dry, badass stuff.” Easy to see why folks like Tarantino bow down to him. Incidentally, back in the day when I was actively collecting, Elmore Leonard first editions were really affordable. $25 - $35 for the common ones, a few hundred for Fifty-Two Pickup, Unknown Man No. 89, etc… ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/23 "2013-08-20T22:53:44Z")
I’ve liked most everything he’s written. _Get Shorty_ was a great read, and a terrific screenplay. It’s a big loss for fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/24 "2013-08-20T23:47:13Z")
One of my Top 5 favorite authors. R.I.P. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/25 "2013-08-21T00:06:55Z")
> **[Elmore Leonard left legacy of character and characters, says his friend Mike...](https://www.nydailynews.com/2013/08/20/elmore-leonard-left-legacy-of-character-and-characters-says-his-friend-mike-lupica/)** > > On his last day they had put Elmore Leonard’s bed in the big sunny room where he wrote his books. So when he died on Tuesday morning at the age of 87, he was just a few feet away from his mag… > [@](#): > > I once said that the only thing better than reading Elmore Leonard was re-reading him. And the only thing better than all that was knowing him, and having him be your friend, and being on the other end of the line when he would let you hear his characters come to life. I will miss him. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/26 "2013-08-21T05:33:26Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > and on a side note; I never understood what seems to be universal hatred for this movie. I liked it. 🙂 Universal hatred for _Out of Sight_? 😕 It was received pretty well by critics and audiences. It’s at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and 85 on Metacritic. It wasn’t a huge box office hit, but Clooney, Lopez, and director Soderbergh were all praised for their work on it. Anyone I’ve ever talked with about it has liked it. ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/27 "2013-08-21T06:03:23Z")
He has been one of my favorite writers. Saw him a few years ago at a reading in Saint Louis. Never would have guessed he was over 80. Still had a great wit and vitality to him. Thank you for the wonderful stories. You definitely improved crime fiction and Hollywood screenwriting. I do think he paved the way for writers and directors like Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. ---
**Author:** ![denquixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@denquixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/denquixote)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/28 "2013-08-21T06:16:17Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > and on a side note; I never understood what seems to be universal hatred for this movie. I liked it. 🙂 If you are talking about “Out of Sight,” it is one of my all-time favorites. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/29 "2013-08-21T13:37:42Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > Universal hatred for _Out of Sight_? 😕 It was received pretty well by critics and audiences. It’s at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and 85 on Metacritic. It wasn’t a huge box office hit, but Clooney, Lopez, and director Soderbergh were all praised for their work on it. Anyone I’ve ever talked with about it has liked it. Yeah - it is one of the few movies of this ilk - post-Tarantino artsy genre movies; a style movie critic AO Scott likes to call “Strained Pulp” - that really worked. It is more “universally liked” vs. hated, and is one of the few roles that actually _helped_ Lopez - it gave her a small bit of cred that she quickly frittered away… ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/30 "2013-08-21T14:00:47Z")
I just read an RIP article on RealClearBooks that contained a great quote from him. [QUOTE=Elmore Leonard] …if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![crucible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@crucible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crucible)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716/31 "2013-08-21T15:23:08Z")
Sometime past, he ws convinced to publish 10 rules, and they were things that almost all writers ignore at times, and he was hard put to understand why anyone took them so seriously. The one I’m sure he meant was that you should leave out any of the parts the reader won’t be interested in. And, as you say, if it sounds like writing, rewrite it. Leonard knew how to write funny, ironic material, stuff that makes you shake your head, and agree, ‘that’s a pity, but it’s true’. His style was ‘storytelling’, and all of us could hardly aspire to a better way of doing it. that style fits the genre’ he wrote in. It doesn’t work in many other genre’ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writer-elmore-leonard-has-died-at-age-87/666716.md?page=1)