Michael Blake
Blake in 2005
Born	Michael Lennox Blake (1945-07-05)July 5, 1945 Fort Bragg, North Carolina, U.S.
Died	May 2, 2015(2015-05-02) (aged 69) Tucson, Arizona, U.S.
Occupation	Author,screenwriter
Alma mater	University of New Mexico Eastern New Mexico University

Michael Lennox Blake (July 5, 1945 – May 2, 2015) was an American author, best known for thefilm adaptation of his novelDances With Wolves, for which he won anAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Early in his life, Blake's family lived in Texas, before moving to Southern California, where they moved frequently. He began writing while serving in theU.S. Air Force during theVietnam War when he was stationed atWalker Air Force Base, where he wrote for the base newspaper.^[1] He studied journalism at theUniversity of New Mexico, and later studied at a film school inBerkeley, California. He also attendedEastern New Mexico University inPortales. In the late 1970s, he moved to Los Angeles; during the 1980s, only one of his screenplays was produced, calledStacy's Knights which starredKevin Costner,^[2] who later encouraged him to continue to write, and introduced him to key figures in the Hollywood Industry.Dances with Wolves was the result; Kevin Costner then asked him to write a screenplay for thefilm based on the novel.

Blake died on May 2, 2015, after a long illness inTucson, Arizona.^[3][4][5]

• Stacy's Knights (1983)
• Dances with Wolves (1990)
• Winding Stair (1998) also directed
• The One (in development)
• The Holy Road (in development)
• Winnetou (in development)

• Dances with Wolves (1988)Fawcett Gold MedalISBN 0-449-13448-2
• Airman Mortensen (1991) Seven Wolves PublishingISBN 0-9627387-7-8
• Marching to Valhalla (1996)Villard BooksISBN 0-679-44864-0
• The Holy Road (2001) Villard BooksISBN 0-679-44866-7
• Into the Stars (2011) ZOVA BooksISBN 978-0-615-51053-8

• Like a Running Dog (2002) (autobiography)
• Indian Yell (2006)
• Twelve the King (2009)

• Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
• Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay
• Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
• Spur Award for Best Motion Picture
• Animal Protection Institute’s Humanitarian of the Year^[6]
• Air Force Sergeants Association’s Americanism Award (1992)^[6]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toMichael Blake.

• "Official Website of Michael Blake". Archived fromthe original on October 11, 2007.
• Michael Blake atIMDb

• 1945 births
• 2015 deaths
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American novelists
• 21st-century American male writers
• 21st-century American novelists
• American male novelists
• American male screenwriters
• Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners
• Best Screenplay Golden Globe winners
• Eastern New Mexico University alumni
• Military personnel from California
• Military personnel from North Carolina
• Novelists from North Carolina
• People from Fort Bragg, North Carolina
• People from Portales, New Mexico
• Screenwriters from North Carolina
• Screenwriters from New Mexico
• United States Air Force personnel of the Vietnam War
• University of New Mexico alumni
• Writers from New Mexico
• Writers Guild of America Award winners

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from October 2022
• Commons category link is on Wikidata