FAIRHOPE, Ala. – Winston Groom, the writer whose novel “Forrest Gump” was made into a six-Oscar winning 1994 movie that became a soaring pop cultural phenomenon, has died at age 77. “While he will be remembered for creating Forrest Gump, Winston Groom was a talented journalist & noted author of American history. “It touched a nerve,” Groom told the Tuscaloosa News in 2014. They “took some of the rough edges off,” Groom told the New York Times in 1994. Groom got $350,000 for the rights to “Forrest Gump” plus 3% of the net profit of the movie.