Dan Cushman, 92; Western Novelist Noted for Wit

Dan Cushman, a prolific writer of Western novels whose 1953 book “Stay Away, Joe” became a movie starring Elvis Presley, died Saturday in Great Falls, Mont. He was 92.

Cushman, who wrote 16 Western novels and more than a dozen other works of fiction and nonfiction, was called “a kind of original--and indigenous--Western wit” by William Bloodworth in “Twentieth Century Western Writers.”

His best-known work, “Stay Away, Joe,” was adapted into a 1958 Broadway musical called “Whoop-Up” before it became a star vehicle for Presley in 1968.

It told the story of a family of French-Canadian Indians who lived as squatters on a Montana ranch, then were chosen for a government rehabilitation project. The family’s fortunes and misfortunes unfold through violence and humor in what a New York Times reviewer called an “ingenious and swift-moving plot.”

The book’s portrayal of American Indians stirred controversy in Montana, and Indian novelist James Welch vetoed an excerpt for inclusion in “The Last Best Place,” a Montana anthology.

In 1998, Cushman received the H.G. Merriam Award for Distinguished Contributions to Montana Literature, joining Richard Hugo, A.B. Guthrie Jr. and Norman Maclean.