‘Stand’ Has Leonard Sitting Tall in Hollywood Saddle

Novelist Elmore Leonard is happy to report he’s pleased with TNT’s adaptation of his western “Last Stand at Saber River,” which premieres Sunday on the cable network.

“I think it’s really good,” says the award-winning author of such acclaimed crime thrillers as “Glitch,” “Freaky Deaky” and “Rum Punch.”

The cast, led by Tom Selleck and Suzy Amis, also made an indelible impression on him. “He’s a great cowboy,” Leonard says of Selleck. “He’s right up there with Sam Elliott. Suzy Amis I thought was really good as his wife. I think she’s a little tougher in the movie than in the book.”

The reason he’s not sure, Leonard acknowledges with a slight chuckle, is that he really doesn’t recall too much of the novel. He wrote it in 1958 and it was published the following year.

“I don’t remember the book,” he says. “But I think it’s close to the book. I sort of recognized a few things.”

The fact that a 1959 work is making it to the screen now is indicative of the fact that Leonard’s stock in Hollywood rose significantly with the critical and commercial success in 1995 of “Get Shorty.”

“No question about it, I have gotten more notoriety since ‘Get Shorty’ than in 45 years of writing,” Leonard says matter-of-factly. “That’s all right. That’s the way it is.”

Of the 33 books he has written, he says, 30 have been optioned over the years by Hollywood. “All my stuff is always bought by Hollywood and then they sit on them,” he says. “Finally, some more things are happening.”

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Currently, there are seven Leonard-spawned movie and TV projects that either are completed or in development. On Feb. 14, MGM/UA will release Paul Schrader’s adaptation of “Touch.” Later this year Showtime is planning to air adaptations of “Pronto” and “The Gold Coast.”

Scott Frank, who penned the adaptation of “Get Shorty,” is adapting Leonard’s latest novel, “Out of Sight,” as well as a TV series version of “Maximum Bob.”

“Quentin Tarantino has four of mine,” Leonard says. “Miramax has optioned four of them and he’s working on ‘Rum Punch,’ ‘Bandits,’ ‘Freaky Deaky’ and ‘Killshot.’ ”

Back in 1959, Leonard made $4,000 for writing “Last Stand at Saber River,” the story of a Confederate soldier returning to his Arizona home only to battle Union sympathizers laying claim to his land.

“I had a job at an ad agency then,” Leonard says. “I was still writing Chevrolet ads.”

Leonard didn’t quit his day job until 1961, just before his classic western “Hombre” was published. But by that time, the market for western fiction was vanishing. He received a paltry $1,250 for “Hombre,” which was later turned into a 1967 film starring Paul Newman and Fredric March.

“Westerns were all on TV [then],” Leonard says. “The magazines were going out of business--Saturday Evening Post and Colliers and the pulp magazines. I sold 30 short stories during the ‘50s while I was working, five books and a couple of movies, ‘3:10 to Yuma’ and ‘The Tall T.’ ”

Leonard gave up adapting his novels for the screen several years ago. (Ronald M. Cohen penned the “Saber River” screenplay.)

“You are an employee,” he explains. “You have to please too many people. I would go against my better judgment and make the changes they wanted so I could get the money, because that kind of work was really supporting my book writing. Finally, when I reached the point where I could make more money writing books than screenplays, I stopped.”

The 1972 Clint Eastwood western, “Joe Kidd,” was a particularly disappointing experience for Leonard. “John Sturges was the director,” he says. “I thought, ‘John Sturges certainly knows what he’s doing--he did “The Magnificent Seven.” ’ He had some ideas that were outtakes from ‘The Magnificent Seven’ he wanted to do in ‘Joe Kidd.’ I don’t know, I think ideas complicated the plot, as far as I was concerned. To me the story just bogged down and it wasn’t as good as it could have been.”

He also was less than thrilled with what Hollywood did with his first non-western novel, the well-received “The Big Bounce.”

“That was the one where I saw it in New York and I got [to the theater] a little bit late and about 20 minutes later, the woman in front of me said to her husband, ‘This is the worst movie I ever saw,’ and the three of us got up and left. I have got the video, but I still haven’t seen the whole thing and that was in 1969.”

These days, Leonard reports, screenwriters are paying much more respect to his novels.

“Of course, with ‘Get Shorty,’ the ending is different. It’s a movie ending now, which I think works better than if they had shot the book ending. The book ending is just talk.”

Leonard says he’s thought about producing films, but concluded that it would be “a waste of time. People have asked me, ‘Have you thought about directing?’ and I’ve said, ‘Yeah, about 50 years ago!’ But my god, it’s way too late now. The idea never appealed to me because of standing around with all of those lights and all of the equipment and all of those cables. I don’t picture that when I am writing a book.”

* “Last Stand at Saber River” airs Sunday at 5, 7 and 9 p.m. on cable’s TNT.