'Urban Cowboy', screenplay writer Aaron Latham passes away at 78

Screenwriter, journalist, and author Aaron Latham passed away on July 23 at the age of 78 in Pennsylvania from complications related to Parkinson's disease. His piece from Texas Monthly served as the inspiration for the 1980 hit film "Urban Cowboy."

Screenwriter, journalist, and author Aaron Latham passed away on July 23 at the age of 78 in Pennsylvania from complications related to Parkinson's disease. His piece from Texas Monthly served as the inspiration for the 1980 hit film "Urban Cowboy." According to Variety, Lesley Stahl, a reporter for "60 Minutes," was Latham's wife. In Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, at Bryn Mawr Hospital, he passed away. accompanied by Taylor Stahl, the couple's daughter Latham was by his side as he passed away. Latham is a producer for the Apple TV+ drama "Servant."

"He loved being two things: He loved being a writer and he loved being a father," Stahl told Variety, noting that he got a good start as a writer at The Washington Post and moved on from there to even bigger accomplishments. The King Arthur mythology is brought to hardscrabble Texas in Latham's novels "Code of the West" from 2001 and "The Cowboy With the Tiffany Gun" from 2004.

Stahl says Latham at first was an intellectual, getting his PhD at Princeton with a dissertation he wrote about F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood. "Hollywood was in his head, even way back," Stahl said, even if he took a circuitous path to making his mark on the screen. "I think he had a very rich life as a journalist, as a playwright, as a screenwriter." Latham grew up in West Texas, where his interest in writing started at a young age. He remarked in a Texas Monthly article that as a child he would create "stories in the form of cartoons." Then, as for his decision to pursue writing as a career, he stated that he was raised "with the idea that writers were the great heroes of the world, and I wanted to be my mother's hero."

Latham was laid to rest in Spur, Texas, a small community located about 75 miles outside of Lubbock, the hometown of Travolta's character in "Urban Cowboy." Latham regarded "Urban Cowboy" as his greatest work since it foresaw the cultural moment occurring at the renowned Gilley's nightclub outside of Houston. In his last hours, Stahl and Stahl Latham played the movie's score for him. (ANI)

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