#’Brokeback Mountain’ screenwriter Larry McMurtry dead at 84

Larry McMurtry, the prolific novelist and screenwriter who won a Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award for his work, died Thursday at 84.

Amanda Lundberg, a spokesperson for the family, confirmed McMurtry’s death in an obituary published Friday by the New York Times. Lundberg did not respond to The Post’s request for confirmation.

Neither the cause of death, nor where McMurtry passed away, are known.

McMurtry was best known for his anti-Western work, or stories that focused on demythologizing the romanticism of the American West.

“I’m a critic of the myth of the cowboy,’’ the native Texan said in an 1988 interview. “I don’t feel that it’s a myth that pertains, and since it’s a part of my heritage I feel it’s a legitimate task to criticize it.’’

Often cited as his most memorable work, his coming-of-age book “The Last Picture Show” sold over 9 million copies and was adapted into a film starring Cybill Shepherd, Jeff Bridges and Cloris Leachman.

McMurtry was not only respected for his 843-page novel “Lonesome Dove,” which won him the Pulitzer and was made into a mini-series for television, but also for the screenplay for “Brokeback Mountain,” a 2005 romantic drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger. Co-written with his housemate and collaborator Diana Ossana, the pair won the Academy Award in 2006 for that film, which focused on the romantic relationship between the two men, one a ranch hand and the other a cowboy.

Over the course of more than 50 years, McMurtry wrote more than 30 novels, more than 30 screenplays — and published other works of memoir, history and essays. One book, “Horseman, Pass By,” was made into the film “Hud,” starring Paul Newman. The film version of his novel “Terms of Endearment” won the Best Picture Oscar in 1984.

McMurtry was born the son of a rancher in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1936. He studied at North Texas State, Rice and Stanford universities. He taught English at the university level, but ditched teaching in his younger years. For about a half-century, McMurtry was also a bookseller. His store Booked Up, in Archer City, Texas, is one of the largest in the nation, according to the Times.

Archer City, where he was raised, served as a model for the town of Thalia, which appeared in his works of fiction.

It’s not clear who survives McMurtry, but he most recently married the widow of his friend Ken Kesey, Faye, in 2011.