SubscribeJ.D Salinger, Terence Mann, and Field of Dreams
Thanks to an email from a reader of my other blog, where several of the Korner entries are mirrored and vice versa, I had a “Homer Simpson” moment for totally forgetting about a crucial Salinger/baseball connection.
The question was “why the ever-litigious Salinger didn’t sue Bill Kinsella over being included in ‘Shoeless Joe.’ And if he was okay with it why did they change it for the movie?”
From today’s Des Moines Register:
The reclusive Salinger, who died Wednesday, was a character in author W.P. Kinsella’s novel “Shoeless Joe,” the 1982 book that became the movie “Field of Dreams,” both set in Iowa.
“When I was writing the novel I was a fan of Salinger,” said Kinsella, who lives in Canada but earned a master’s degree at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1978. ” ‘Catcher in the Rye’ was the quintessential book of growing up male in North America.”
In Kinsella’s book, the main character – Ray Kinsella – takes Salinger to a baseball game to discover why he was called to build the field of his dreams.
…
Kinsella said the working title of the book was “The Kidnapping of J.D. Salinger.”
After a name change and publication of “Shoeless Joe,” Salinger’s lawyers wrote Kinsella, outraged about the portrayal of the world-wary author.
“Salinger made a career out of being publicized for not seeking publicity,” Kinsella said. “It was controlled and planned, and it kept his name in the media for 50 years.”
But the lawyers had a warning: “In a legalese way, they basically said we don’t have enough money to sue you but we will (expletive) on your wish to use it in a movie,” Kinsella said.That’s why, in the “Field of Dreams” movie, Ray Kinsella seeks out fictional author Terence Mann.
By the way, not only was the name of the author changed for the movie, but so was his race. James Earl Jones played the role of the reclusive writer to near perfection.
He also delivered one of the best baseball movie speeches since Garry Cooper in The Pride of the Yankees.
Very interesting. It’s a shame Salinger was so reclusive and couldn’t enjoy fame a bit more, but not everybody likes the spotlight. Hell of an author. Amazing that he only wrote one novel. His Jewish background is a very interesting tale too. He will be remembered.
I’ve got to admit that I cried through a good portion of this movie and I was maybe about 55 at the time. But quite often my tears were of joy such as the memorable line when Ray Liotta as “Shoeless Joe” Jackson said to Ray that when they came back to play on his field, they wouldn’t be bringing Ty Cobb with them. He said, “We couldn’t even stand the son of a bitch when he was alive. It you haven’t seen it, be sure to check out the somewhat fictionalized “Cobb” where Tommy Lee Jones played “the Georgia Peach” and Robert Wuhl played his biographer, who he was just about driving up the wall.
Also, if you’re a real baseball fan, see if you can get a hold of a 1938 western entitled “Rawhide”. Lou Gehrig shares the lead with Smith Balleew and I was really surprised to find that Lou did about as good a job of acting as Gary cooper might have done had he been given the role. But at all costs, please avoid “The Babe Ruth Story” that starred William Bendix… It was “whitewashed” beyond belief. The Babe was far better portrayed by John Goodman in the movie of the same name.