Jim Haskins, 63, Wrote ‘The Cotton Club’
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Jim Haskins, a University of Florida English professor and prolific author whose book “The Cotton Club” inspired the 1984 movie, died Wednesday in his Manhattan apartment. He was 63. He had been suffering from emphysema.
Haskins wrote more than 100 books for adults and children. His credits range from counting books for children to biographies on Rosa Parks, Stevie Wonder, and Spike Lee. At the time of his death, he was working on a book on Cubs Hall of Fame shortstop Ernie Banks.
The screenplay “The Cotton Club,” about the famed Harlem speakeasy, was written by William Kennedy, Mario Puzo, and Francis Ford Coppola. They said the 1977 picture book by Haskins by the same name was the inspiration of their story about 1928 gangsters and jilted love.
“He was a generous spirit and one of the most amazing talents of the 21st century,” his friend and colleague, Irma McClaurin, an associate professor of anthropology, told the Gainesville Sun. “He had a repertoire of books that told us of blacks in government, blacks in music what education of black children was like.”
Haskins became a University of Florida professor in 1977 and was one of the founders of African American studies at UF. He commuted between New York and Gainesville.
