Legends of the Fall author Harrison dies

Author and screenwriter Jim Harrison, who wrote Legends of the Fall which became a major film, has died aged 78.

Author Jim Harrison, who wrote Legends of the Fall which became a major film, has died aged 78. (AAP)

Jim Harrison, the fiction writer, poet, outdoorsman and reveller who enjoyed mainstream success in middle age with his historical saga Legends of the Fall, has died at age 78.

Spokeswoman Deb Seager of Grove Atlantic, Harrison's publisher, said Harrison died on Saturday at his home in Patagonia, Arizona. Seager did not know the cause of death.

Harrison, who wrote with gruff affection for the American landscape and rural life, completed more than 30 books and was compared with Ernest Hemingway in the range and kinds of his interests.

He was a hunter and fisherman who savoured his cabin near his Michigan hometown, a drinker and Hollywood scriptwriter who was close friends with Jack Nicholson, and came to know Sean Connery and Warren Beatty among others.