Jeremy Larner, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Candidate (1972), has died. He was 88.
The writer’s son Jesse Larner told The New York Times that his father died on Feb. 24 in a nursing facility in Oakland, California. Although he was diagnosed with lymphoma in January and had Parkinson’s disease since 2013, a specific cause of death was not yet known.
Born March 20, 1937 in Olean, New York, Larner graduated from Brandeis University in 1958 before writing several books throughout the ’60s, including his debut 1964 novel Drive, He Said, which was adapted by co-writer/director Jack Nicholson into a 1971 film. As a journalist, Larner wrote for Harpers, The Paris Review and Life.
Larner was a speechwriter for Eugene McCarthy during his 1968 campaign for president, which inspired his book Nobody Knows, serialized for Harpers in ’69.
The campaign also influenced Larner’s script for the 1972 Michael Ritchie-helmed film The Candidate, which starred Robert Redford as leftist lawyer Bill McKay, who quickly becomes a popular public figure as he is groomed to run for a senate seat. The movie earned Larner an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Over the years, Larner also wrote speeches for politician Bill Bradley, activist Sam Brown, Paul Newman and Redford, covering topics like the Vietnam War and environmentalism.
Larner’s death comes after Redford died at age 89 back in September,
