Thomas McGuane: Screenwriter of 'Missouri Breaks'

McGuane, author of the recent novel “Driving on the Rim” and the screenplay for “Rancho Deluxe,” which was filmed in Livingston, said it was something of an accident that he ended up out West.

He first came this way because he had a girlfriend in Wyoming, where he spent a summer on a ranch. He was near the Montana border and visited the state for the first time. Since then, he’s purchased Montana property every chance he’s gotten.

McGuane called the Livingston area home in the 1970s, a time he described as “a unique era superimposed on a ranch and railroad town.”

Then, McGuane said, the town was more divided, filled with railroad workers, ranchers and “us weirdoes from out of nowhere.” It was a wild time for him, with a great bar life.

“If you remember it, you weren’t there,” he said.

SEE: The Bozeman Daily Chronicle: Newsmakers