The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing
In 1974, while I kept busy teaching Sophomore English and Writing at Anderson High School, I learned about a woman named Marilyn Durham who, in 1972, had published a best-selling book entitled The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing. I understood that Marilyn Durham had never been west of the Mississippi River, so she had no personal knowledge of Western geography, Indian ways, or what life was like in the West before WWII. I heard she had two daughters. After she would send them off to school, she would go to her local library and research all the details she needed to write her story. Remember, in 1972, we did not have the internet with its variety of search engines with which we can find any information we want today.
The story, a romance/western set in the 19th century, portrays a woman, Catherine Crocker, who runs away, on horseback, from her abusive husband. During this escape, she becomes involved in a train robbery led by Jay Brobart, a once respected army officer. However, he had spent ten years in prison for killing three white men who had raped and murdered his Indian wife, Cat Dancing. Jay and his gang have robbed a train to gain the resources to ride into Indian Territory to retrieve his children. Jay is forced to take Catherine with him to protect her from marauding Indians and a posse following them which includes her drunken, violent husband. There lies the tale as Catherine and Jay are forced to be together in some dangerous situations.
The book went into a second printing, I believe, and then in 1973, Warner Brothers produced a movie with the same title starring Burt Reynolds as Jay, Sarah Miles as Catherine and included George Hamilton, Jay Silverheels and Lee J. Cobb as the supporting cast. Thus Marilyn Durham not only made thousands of dollars from the sale of her book, but she earned additional dollars from the story becoming a movie.
I mention all this because this is one of the few times in my life when I was completely and utterly jealous. You remember the old adage: “Those who can write, write; those who can’t write, teach.” Considering this was like pouring salt on an open wound to me. Marilyn Durham accomplished everything I have ever dreamed of doing. There she was, working in a quiet library, finding time to write, selling her story to a publisher and making a lot of money. What was I doing? Teaching writing a bunch of sophomore kids who would rather take a swallow of castor oil than write an essay. And the time I could have been in the library, I spent correcting and grading their papers. We had two children in college at that time. How a few thousand dollars would have helped! Marilyn Durham wrote; I taught. That certainly identified my place in the world of writing. You can see why I had to have a few stern talks with myself for a while.
As far as I know, Marilyn Durham never published another book.Amazon.com offers only The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing.“They” say, “Everybody has at least one story to tell.” I have been working on mine. Who knows? Maybe mine will be a best-seller and movie too.