American writer, born on September 28, 1939, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. He was married to Eleanor Anna Kruglinski for 55 years til he died. After graduating from college at Brown University, he became a reporter, first in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and at the age of thirty-eight, he chose to move to Hollywood to make his debut as a writer. He's known for Absence of Malice (1981), Random Hearts (1999), and Out of Africa (1985), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He survived cancer twice, and died on August 9, 2020, in Royal Oak, Michigan.