Cross Creek is a 1983 American biographical drama romance film starring Mary Steenburgen as The Yearling author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.
The film is directed by Martin Ritt and is based in part on Rawlings's 1942 memoir Cross Creek.
In 1928 in New York State, aspiring author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings advises her husband that her last book was rejected by a publisher, she has bought an orange grove in Florida, and she is leaving him to go there.
Marsh Turner comes around with his daughter Ellie, a teenage girl who keeps a deer fawn as a pet named Flag.
A black woman, Geechee, arrives and offers to work for her, even though Rawlings insists she cannot pay her much.
Rawlings employs the assistance of a few of the Creek residents, Geechee and Baskin, to unblock a vital irrigation vein for her grove, and it begins to improve.
She does so immediately, beginning with the story of the young married couple (which eventually becomes "Jacob's Ladder," published in Scribner's Magazine in 1931).
During a visit to the Turners' home on Ellie's 14th birthday, Flag escapes his pen once more and Marsh is forced to shoot him after he eats the family's vegetables.
Rejected and heartbroken, Rawlings leaves her home in a motorboat and rides down the waterways for several miles.
After more than a day in complete isolation and loneliness out in the water, she returns to her home and is happily reunited with Geechee.
A few nights later, Rawlings and Geechee find themselves battling to save their orange grove from the autumn frost.
Ellie apologizes to Rawlings for her behavior at Marsh's funeral, stating that “good friends shouldn’t keep apart,” and they reconcile.
In 1928 Rawlings gave up a ten-year career in journalism to move to Cross Creek and write novels.
[6] In 1943 Miss Zelma Gaison, a social worker and friend of Rawlings, sued the author for $100,000 alleging defamation of character in the novel, claiming it made her look like a "hussy" who "cursed".
[8] However Gaison appealed to the Supreme Court, who referred the matter to a jury, saying there was an arguable case of invasion of privacy.
"[1] In 1978 Radnitz announced he would make a TV movie of the book for NBC with Elizabeth Clark to adapt it.
Radnitz decided to make a feature film instead and got Dalene Young to write a script.
"[1] Eventually he succeeded in getting Martin Ritt, with whom he had made Sounder, to direct and financing was obtained from EMI Films.
[12] Ritt says he cast Steenburgen because "I wanted a lady out of Middle America who had a lot of the good qualities associated with that section of the country...
"[13] The character based on Jody was a girl in real life and turned into a boy for The Yearling.
The filmmakers were going to keep Jody a boy for the film until they saw Dana Hill in Shoot the Moon and changed it to a girl.
[14] Radnitz suggested Rip Torn, with whom he had worked on Birch Interval, as the backwoods hunter, Marsh Turner.
[16] Rawlings's husband, Norton Baskin, the hotel proprietor whom she met when she moved to Florida played by Peter Coyote in the film, came on location several times.
"[1] "A lot of people down there really glorified and romanticized Marjorie, whereas Norton tended to be real straight about her," said Steenburgen.
"It's very easy to approach a character like that - a so-called strong woman who overcomes the odds - and give a one-note performance, playing that strength alone.
"[1] Steenburgen said, "The movie is about what it takes to make a writer write - it's essentially an internal struggle - and it's very hard to do that, to be that quiet.