Groom’s stepson, Frederick Helmsing, told the New York Times that a heart attack was the likely cause of death. Nonetheless, sequel-addicted Hollywood somehow never made the new movie.Winston Groom, the Vietnam veteran and Southern writer best known for his 1986 novel Forrest Gump, which became the beloved 1994 film starring Tom Hanks, died in his sleep Thursday at his home in Fairhope, Alabama. 'I would have probably preferred my version of it, but that thing never would have opened.' The book became a major bestseller in the wake of the film, and Groom got a much better deal for the follow-up novel, 1995's 'Gump and Co.' 'I'm happy as a pig in sunshine,' he told the Mobile Register.

'They did an excellent job,' he told the Tuscaloosa News. But he got into a serious dispute with Paramount Pictures when they told him a film that had earned over $600 million was in the red after expenses. Groom got $350,000 for the rights to 'Forrest Gump' plus 3% of the net profit of the movie. His most recent novel, El Paso, was published in 2016. Sherman and Jefferson Davis, president of the confederacy. In 2009 he released 'Vicksburg 1863,' an account of the Union siege that brought a novelist's touch to historical figures like Ulysses S. In 2005, Groom released '1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls,' which chronicled the first year of U.S. Groom also wrote nonfiction on diverse subjects including the Civil War, World War I and Alabama's Crimson Tide football. They 'took some of the rough edges off,' Groom told the New York Times in 1994. The film took away Gump's size - Groom said he envisioned John Goodman playing him - along with his profanity, and most of his sex life. Gump was not a math savant as he was in the book, and was a more saintly soul. 2 grossing film at the box office, second only to 'The Lion King.' The basic outlines of Gump's life are the same as they are in the book: Gump plays football under Paul 'Bear' Bryant at the University of Alabama, serves in Vietnam and starts a major shrimp business. The film dominated the 1995 Academy Awards, winning six Oscars including best picture, best director for Robert Zemeckis and best actor for Hanks.

'It touched a nerve,' Groom told the Tuscaloosa News in 2014. The movie, which also starred Robin Wright and Mykelti Williamson, became deeply embedded in the American psyche and has remained an enduring television staple and huge cultural phenomenon since.

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