Diana Ossana

Diana Ossana
Born	Diana Lynn Ossana St. Louis, Missouri
Occupation	Screenwriter, producer, novelist

Diana Lynn Ossana is an American writer who has collaborated on writing screenplays, teleplays, and novels with author Larry McMurtry since they first worked together in 1992, on the semi-fictionalized biography Pretty Boy Floyd. She is a published author in her own right of several short stories and essays.

Life and career

Ossana first read the Annie Proulx short story Brokeback Mountain in the October 13, 1997 issue of The New Yorker magazine. She immediately urged her writing partner McMurtry to read it and asked him if he felt they could write a screenplay based upon the story. McMurtry agreed they could. They wrote Proulx asking her for an option to the short story in order to write a screenplay. Proulx replied that although she did not see the potential for a movie in the story, she would agree to their option. Ossana and McMurtry proceeded to write the script, which they completed in early 1998. Ossana's and McMurtry's screenplay for Brokeback Mountain won the Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay and Writers Guild of America Award. Ossana, a producer on the film, also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Drama. The film was released in the United States in December 2005. Brokeback received widespread critical acclaim and it won the Golden Lion (Best Film) award at the Venice Film Festival and the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture - Drama. As a producer, Ossana joined cast and crew during the three months of shooting in Canada.

Ossana was born to an Italian immigrant father and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She attended Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico and moved to Arizona in 1977. She currently resides in Texas.

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

• 2005: Best Film (nominated), Brokeback Mountain
• 2005: Best Screenplay - Adapted, Brokeback Mountain

BAFTA Film Awards

• 2005: Best Film, Brokeback Mountain
• 2005: Best Screenplay - Adapted, Brokeback Mountain

Golden Globe Awards

• 2005: Best Screenplay - Adapted, Brokeback Mountain
• 2005: Best Drama Brokeback Mountain

PGA Awards

• 2005: Best Film, Brokeback Mountain

WGA Awards

• 2005: Best Screenplay - Adapted, Brokeback Mountain

External links

• Diana Ossana at the Internet Movie Database
• HTML version of production notes for Brokeback Mountain (with an interview with Ossana about the film and some biographical information)
• Guide to the Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana papers at Rice University (with some background information)
• "My Time on Brokeback Mountain" (Essay by Diana Osanna on advocate.com, January 2006)