Jim Harrison, the fiction writer, poet and outdoorsman who wrote with gruff affection about the US landscape and rural life, has died at the age of 78.

He is best remembered for his 1979 historical saga Legends Of The Fall, which gave him some success in middle age and spawned a 1995 movie adaptation starring Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt.

Spokeswoman Deb Seager of Grove Atlantic, Harrison's publisher, said Harrison died on Saturday at his home in Patagonia, Arizona. His cause of death was not revealed.

Harrison completed more than 30 books and was compared to Ernest Hemingway in his interests. He was a hunter and fisherman who savoured time spent at his cabin near his Michigan hometown.

He was also a Hollywood scriptwriter who was close friends with Jack Nicholson, and also came to know Sir Sean Connery and Warren Beatty, among others.

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