Gustav Hasford
Encyclopedia
Gustav Hasford was an American
writer. His semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers
was the basis of the film
Full Metal Jacket
.
, Hasford joined the United States Marine Corps
in 1967 and served as a combat correspondent
during the Vietnam War
.
Hasford associated with various science fiction
writers of the 1970s (including Arthur Byron Cover
and David J. Skal
), had works published in magazines and anthologies such as Space and Time and Damon Knight
's Orbit series, and briefly shared an apartment with author Harlan Ellison
.
In 1978, Hasford attended the Milford Writer's Workshop
and met veteran science fiction author Frederik Pohl
, who was then an editor at Bantam Books
. At Pohl's suggestion, Hasford submitted The Short-Timers, and Pohl promptly bought it for Bantam. The Short-Timers became a best-seller, and was adapted into the 1987 feature film Full Metal Jacket
, directed by Stanley Kubrick
. The screenplay was written by Hasford, Kubrick, and screenwriter Michael Herr
, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Hasford's actual contributions were a subject of dispute among the three and ultimately Hasford chose to skip the Oscar ceremonies.
In 1988, shortly before the Oscar ceremony, Hasford was charged for theft after campus police from California Polytechnic State University
in San Luis Obispo, California
, found nearly 10,000 library books in his rented storage locker. At that time, he had 87 overdue books and five years of the magazine Civil War Times checked out from the Cal Poly-SBO library; the materials were valued at over $2,000. Hasford's book collection included books borrowed (and never returned) from dozens of libraries across the United States, and from libraries in the United Kingdom
and Australia
. Others were allegedly taken from the homes of acquaintances. Among them were 19th-century books on Edgar Allan Poe
and the American Civil War
. He had obtained borrowing privileges at Cal Poly-SBO as a California resident, but submitted a false address and Social Security number
. In 1985, he had borrowed 98 books from the Sacramento, California
public library, and was wanted for grand theft there. Hasford initially denied the charges, but eventually admitted possession of several hundred stolen books, and pled Nolo contendere
("no contest") to possession of stolen property. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment (of which he served three months), and promised to pay restitution from the royalties for his future works. Hasford claimed that he wanted the books to research a never-published book on the Civil War. He described his difficulties as "a vicious attack launched against me by moral majority
fanatics backed up by the full power of the Fascist
State."
In 1990 he published a second novel, The Phantom Blooper
, a sequel to The Short-Timers. Hasford's final novel was A Gypsy Good Time
, a detective story set in Los Angeles
. It was published in 1992, and received little notice. Hasford, suffering from diabetes, moved to the Greek
island of Aegina
and died there of heart failure on 29 January 1993.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer. His semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers
The Short-Timers
The Short-Timers is a 1979 semi-autobiographical novel by American former Marine Gustav Hasford,about his experience in the Vietnam War. It was later adapted into the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket by Hasford, Michael Herr, and Stanley Kubrick....
was the basis of the film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
Full Metal Jacket
Full Metal Jacket
Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is an adaptation of the 1979 novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford and stars Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard and Adam Baldwin. The film follows a platoon of U.S...
.
Biography
Born in Russellville, AlabamaRussellville, Alabama
Russellville is a city in Franklin County in the U.S. state of Alabama. At the 2000 census, the population of the city was 8,971. The city is the county seat of Franklin County.-History:...
, Hasford joined the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
in 1967 and served as a combat correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
during the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
.
Hasford associated with various science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writers of the 1970s (including Arthur Byron Cover
Arthur Byron Cover
Arthur Byron Cover is a science fiction author.Cover attended the Clarion Writer's SF Workshop in New Orleans in 1971, and made his first professional short-story sale to Harlan Ellison's The Last Dangerous Visions...
and David J. Skal
David J. Skal
David J. Skal is an American cultural historian known for his writings on horror films and horror literature.-Early life:...
), had works published in magazines and anthologies such as Space and Time and Damon Knight
Damon Knight
Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
's Orbit series, and briefly shared an apartment with author Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
.
In 1978, Hasford attended the Milford Writer's Workshop
Milford Writer's Workshop
The Milford Writer's Workshop or more properly Milford Writers' Conference is an influential science fiction writer's event founded by Damon Knight among others in the mid-1950s in Milford, Pennsylvania...
and met veteran science fiction author Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
, who was then an editor at Bantam Books
Bantam Books
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
. At Pohl's suggestion, Hasford submitted The Short-Timers, and Pohl promptly bought it for Bantam. The Short-Timers became a best-seller, and was adapted into the 1987 feature film Full Metal Jacket
Full Metal Jacket
Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is an adaptation of the 1979 novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford and stars Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard and Adam Baldwin. The film follows a platoon of U.S...
, directed by Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
. The screenplay was written by Hasford, Kubrick, and screenwriter Michael Herr
Michael Herr
Michael Herr is a writer and former war correspondent, best known as the author of Dispatches , a memoir of his time as a correspondent for Esquire magazine during the Vietnam War...
, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Hasford's actual contributions were a subject of dispute among the three and ultimately Hasford chose to skip the Oscar ceremonies.
In 1988, shortly before the Oscar ceremony, Hasford was charged for theft after campus police from California Polytechnic State University
California Polytechnic State University
California Polytechnic State University, or Cal Poly, is a public university located in San Luis Obispo, California, United States. The university is one of two polytechnic campuses in the 23-member California State University system....
in San Luis Obispo, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, found nearly 10,000 library books in his rented storage locker. At that time, he had 87 overdue books and five years of the magazine Civil War Times checked out from the Cal Poly-SBO library; the materials were valued at over $2,000. Hasford's book collection included books borrowed (and never returned) from dozens of libraries across the United States, and from libraries in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Others were allegedly taken from the homes of acquaintances. Among them were 19th-century books on Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
and the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. He had obtained borrowing privileges at Cal Poly-SBO as a California resident, but submitted a false address and Social Security number
Social Security number
In the United States, a Social Security number is a nine-digit number issued to U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and temporary residents under section 205 of the Social Security Act, codified as . The number is issued to an individual by the Social Security Administration, an independent...
. In 1985, he had borrowed 98 books from the Sacramento, California
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
public library, and was wanted for grand theft there. Hasford initially denied the charges, but eventually admitted possession of several hundred stolen books, and pled Nolo contendere
Nolo contendere
is a legal term that comes from the Latin for "I do not wish to contend." It is also referred to as a plea of no contest.In criminal trials, and in some common law jurisdictions, it is a plea where the defendant neither admits nor disputes a charge, serving as an alternative to a pleading of...
("no contest") to possession of stolen property. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment (of which he served three months), and promised to pay restitution from the royalties for his future works. Hasford claimed that he wanted the books to research a never-published book on the Civil War. He described his difficulties as "a vicious attack launched against me by moral majority
Moral Majority
The Moral Majority was a political organization of the United States which had an agenda of evangelical Christian-oriented political lobbying...
fanatics backed up by the full power of the Fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
State."
In 1990 he published a second novel, The Phantom Blooper
The Phantom Blooper
The Phantom Blooper is a 1990 novel written by Gustav Hasford, and the sequel to The Short-Timers. It continues to follow James T. "Joker" Davis through his Vietnam odyssey...
, a sequel to The Short-Timers. Hasford's final novel was A Gypsy Good Time
A Gypsy Good Time
A Gypsy Good Time is a 1992 Noir detective novel by Vietnam Veteran Gustav Hasford and was the last novel that he completed before his death in 1993 at the age of 45. It is written in the style of classic hardboiled detective fiction, and was poorly received by book critics at the time for making...
, a detective story set in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. It was published in 1992, and received little notice. Hasford, suffering from diabetes, moved to the Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
island of Aegina
Aegina
Aegina is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece in the Saronic Gulf, from Athens. Tradition derives the name from Aegina, the mother of Aeacus, who was born in and ruled the island. During ancient times, Aegina was a rival to Athens, the great sea power of the era.-Municipality:The municipality...
and died there of heart failure on 29 January 1993.
Books
- The Short-TimersThe Short-TimersThe Short-Timers is a 1979 semi-autobiographical novel by American former Marine Gustav Hasford,about his experience in the Vietnam War. It was later adapted into the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket by Hasford, Michael Herr, and Stanley Kubrick....
(1979) ISBN 0-553-23945-7 - The Phantom BlooperThe Phantom BlooperThe Phantom Blooper is a 1990 novel written by Gustav Hasford, and the sequel to The Short-Timers. It continues to follow James T. "Joker" Davis through his Vietnam odyssey...
(1990) ISBN 0-553-05718-9 - A Gypsy Good TimeA Gypsy Good TimeA Gypsy Good Time is a 1992 Noir detective novel by Vietnam Veteran Gustav Hasford and was the last novel that he completed before his death in 1993 at the age of 45. It is written in the style of classic hardboiled detective fiction, and was poorly received by book critics at the time for making...
(1992) ISBN 0-671-72917-9