Last night, to take my mind off disasters, I watched the PBS American Masters documentary about Willa Cather. It was sort of interesting, and made me think of my internship with TV producer-director Glenn Jordan, who did a Hallmark Hall of Fame based on O Pioneers! in 1992, starring Jessica Lang. Turns out that there are quite a few Willa Cather stories on IMDB's list of her tv movies. They have been directed by A-list talent like Jack Gold, Joseph Sargeant, and Karen Arthur.
I learned from the PBS show that Cather wasn't much of a country mouse at all; rather, a Greenwich Village bohemian (she lived on Bank Street), who left Nebraska as soon as she was able to do so. She was obviously a lesbian, a very successful editor at McClure's Magazine, and became a best-selling author despite the failure of her first novel. She began writing later in life, and in the 30s fell afoul of the Communist Party types who wanted proletarian novels. Her work has stood the test of time, and her interesting personality has made me interested--for the first time--in reading what Willa Cather wrote. It wasn't all about wheatfields and praries, it turns out...
