Novalyeb Price Ellis (1908-1999) was born today, March 9. She was a school teacher in Cross Plains when she met Robert E. Howard. They dated off and on for the two years preceding his death in 1936.

She turned her diaries from that time into the memoir One Who Walked Alone in 1986. She supposedly wrote the book in response to L. Sprague de Camp’s biography of Howard, Dark Vally Destiny. My understanding is that she did not appreciate the way de Camp portrayed Howard. She was not alone in that.

But I digress.

One Who Walked Alone was made into a movie in 1996, starring Renee Zellweger as Novalyne and Vincent D’Onofrio as Howard. Both were relatively unknown at the time. Zellweger’s next movie was her breakout role in Jerry McGuire. D’Onofrio went on  to star in one of the Law and Order spinoffs.

The movie followed the book closely, and the director and producer took few dramatic liberties. It wasn’t filmed in Cross Plains because the size of the fim crew made that impractical. For one thing, Cross Plains wasn’t (and isn’t) big enought to handle the logistics required for lodging and meals. I saw the film at the Inwood Theater in Dallas when it came out.

Novalyne followed up One Who Walked Alone in 1989 with Day of the Stranger: Further Memories of Robert E. Howard. (If anyone out there knows where I can score a copy of this, please let me know.)

Much of our knowledge of Howard’s life comes from Novalyne’s writings and memories.  While his letters tell us a great deal about him, Howard showed a side of himself to Novalyne that others didn’t see, or if they did, they left no written records. While there have been other biographies of Howard since the publication of One Who Walked Alone, with at least one forthcoming (waves at Will Oliver), when Novalyne’s memoir was published there had only been one book leangth treatment of Robert E. Howard’s life, the aforementioned Dark Valley Destiny.

So if you have a chance, raise a glass later tonight to the memory of Novalyne Price Ellis and her willingness to put down her memories for us.