Gary Cartwright

Gary Cartwright earned his BA in journalism at Texas Christian University. He had a distinguished career as a newspaper reporter and as a freelance writer, contributing stories to such national publications as Harper’s, Life, and Esquire. He was a senior editor at Texas Monthly for 25 years, until his retirement in 2010 at age 76. He died in 2017.

Cartwright was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 1986 in the reporting excellence category. He was the recipient of a Dobie-Paisano fellowship and won the Texas Institute of Letters Stanley Walker award for journalism and the Carr P. Collins Award for nonfiction. He won the 1989 Press Club of Dallas Katie Award for best magazine news story. He also received the 2005 Headliner Club of Austin award for best magazine story. Cartwright wrote several books, including Blood Will Tell, Confessions of a Washed-up Sportswriter, Dirty Dealing, Galveston: A History of the Island, and Heart Wiseguy, a memoir published in 1998. He cowrote three movie scripts, for J. W. Coop (Columbia, 1972); Pair of Aces (CBS TV, 1990), which he also coproduced; and Pancho, Billy and Esmerelda, which he coproduced for his own production company in 1994. He also coproduced Another Pair of Aces for CBS. Blood Will Tell was adapted by CBS TV as a four-hour miniseries in 1994.