Oscar Award-Winning Writer Michael Blake Has Died

Michael Blake died in Tuscon, Arizona on Saturday, May 2 following a long illness. Best known as the author and screenwriter the book and Oscar-winning film DANCES WITH WOLVES, he was 69.

Michael Lennox Blake was an American author, best known for the film adaptation of his novel Dances with Wolves.

Early in his life, Blake's family lived in Texas, before moving to Southern California, where they moved frequently. He began writing when he was stationed at Walker Air Force Base, when he wrote for the base newspaper. He studied journalism at the University of New Mexico, and later studied at a film school, in Berkeley, California. He also attended Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. In the late 1970s he moved to Los Angeles; during the eighties only one of his screenplays was produced, called Stacey's Knights. The movie starred Kevin Costner, who later convinced him to write Dances with Wolves, and then a screenplay for the film based on the novel. He has since GONE on to do humanitarian work, and continued to write.

His screenplays include:
Stacey's Knights (1983)
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Winding Stair (1998) also directed
The One (In development)
The Holy Road (In development)
Winnetou (In development)

His screenplay for DANCES WITH WOLVES earned him the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Writers Guild of America Award.

Michael Blake has three brothers, one of whom is Dan Webb, former principal of Santa Fe HIGH SCHOOL in Santa Fe, NM.