Author Didn’t Mind Being Snubbed At Oscars

Amid his tears of gratitude, Tom Hanks didn’t think to thank the writer who created Forrest Gump. Neither did director Robert Zemeckis. Screenwriter Eric Roth planned to mention him, but with Oscar in hand and the lights in his eyes, Winston Groom’s name slipped Roth’s mind.

Groom, author of the 1986 novel “Forrest Gump” and writer of the screenplay’s first draft, left the Shrine Auditorium as one of the few involved in the making of this year’s most honored film who did not receive either a piece of statuary or a public thank you. And what was the crusty author from Point Clear, Ala., thinking most of the night, as he watched “Gump” and other films being honored, and actors and cinematographers and costume designers praising each other? “I kept saying to myself, ‘Damn, these people out here take this … seriously.’ “

Groom did not. Which is why, he said, he wasn’t the least bit put off by being left off everyone’s list of People Who Made This Night Possible. “This was their time to shine, not mine,” Groom, 52, said in a thick drawl. “I’m not saying that as some sort of homily. I really don’t care about that sort of stuff. Really.”

Not that Groom and his wife, Anne Clinton, were about to pass up the free tickets to the show or all the hoopla afterward. “This is like Mardi Gras for these people. It was one long night.”Before the film was made, “Gump” sold only 40,000 copies and had been out of print for five years. Last summer, with 700,000 copies in reprint, it hit the best-seller list.