Many films have been filmed in or near Bastrop, Texas, from the iconic – the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) – to the obscure – Terror Birds (2016). My favorite is The Whole Wide World, a 1996 biopic of the brief relationship between Novalyne Price and Robert Howard, based on her memoir One Who Walked Alone.
The film, which starred Rene Zellweger and Vincent Donofrio was marketed as a period romance, and occasionally is broadcast on the Lifetime cable network. It’s well-made and well-acted, but it’s also of particular interest to fans of Howard (1906-1936), the author of many adventure and supernatural stories, including Conan the Barbarian.
Conan was a fictional adventurer during the Hyborian Age, a mythical time Howard invented which took place after the sinking of Atlantis and before the beginning of recorded history. A warrior, a thief and, eventually, king, he was a highly fictionalized version of Howard himself, as were many of the other he-men about whom he wrote.
Price, an aspiring writer, was initially attracted by Howard’s ability to write and sell his stories, but also became attracted to the man. For a few years he gave her advice on writing and life, not all entirely apropos or welcome. They also dated, off and on. Unfortunately for the relationship, there was another woman: Howard’s mother, to whom he was inordinately attached.
Zellweger was still a little-known actor at the time of the film – one of her earliest film roles was in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation – but her breakthrough role in Jerry Maguire soon followed. In fact her performance in Whole Wide World helped her land the part. Donofrio had his breakthrough role years earlier in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (2006), but he really came to fame years later with the role of Det. Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001-2011).
Both actors are excellent in the film. Donofrio has the showier part, using his height and physicality to embody Howard, who sometimes acts out the stories he’s writing as he walks across town. But Zellweger does well with the more restrained Price, who gradually realizes Howard is not the man for her. One clue was probably the way women are portrayed in the stories. Usually they are villainesses, or in need of rescue, or just unsuitable for a man like Conan.
Howard also had attitudes towards fiction akin to a recovered alcoholic's toward booze, and hectored Price about it. In his last year, he wanted to write about actual Texas and American Southwest history (but he sometimes settled for adding similar elements to his Conan stories and others). In the film Price comments, “Well I haven't seen any giant snakes, or big buxom naked women frolicking through the Texas hills lately.”
Howard had no known drug addictions or problems with alcohol that might have needed rehabilitation at Willow Springs Recovery, but he may have had mental problems, including depression. His attachment to his mother was so strong that when his mother fell into a coma, and Howard was told she would never awaken, he took his own life with a borrowed gun.