TUCSON, Ariz. -- Michael Blake, the writer whose novel Dances With Wolves became a major hit movie and earned him an Academy Award for the screenplay, has died.
Blake, 69, died Saturday in Tucson after a long battle with cancer, his business partner, Daniel Ostroff, said.
Blake, who wrote several novels, is best known for Dances With Wolves, which he wrote while broke at the urging of his longtime friend, actor Kevin Costner. The novel was fairly unsuccessful, but it became a film after Costner asked Blake to adapt it into a movie. The book went on to sell 3.5 million copies after the success of the movie.
Dances With Wolves, a Civil War epic about Army lieutenant who befriends an American Indian tribe, won seven Academy Awards, including one for Blake for best adapted screenplay.
Despite his success, Blake was a humble man who passionately advocated for many causes, including literacy, American Indian history and the West's vanishing wild horses, said his wife, Marianne Mortensen Blake.
Ostroff met Blake in 1988 and worked with him on several occasions. He and Mortensen Blake are now bringing to life the sequel to Dances With Wolves, a novel Blake wrote called The Holy Road.
Blake spent several years living out of his car and on friends' couches while he wrote the Dances With Wolves novel.