It All Started With James
To really get to the root of Midnight Cowboy, we have to learn a little more about the man who made the story happen in the first place. James Leo Herlihy was born in Detroit, Michigan, on February 27 of 1927.
Source: theparisreview.org
He was born to working-class parents and actually enlisted in the Navy in 1945, but didn’t end up being involved in any kind of combat as World War II came to a close. He studied sculpture at Black Mountain College in North Carolina for a couple of years and then went to California to study at the Pasadena Playhouse College of the Theatre.