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The subject of this article:

  • exists in the Forrest Gump novel canon (including Gump & Co.)
  • is not mentioned in the Forrest Gump film canon

Curtis is Forrest Gump's roommate in the "Ape Dorm" of the University of Alabama. He is from Opp, Alabama, "where they make peanut butter", and calls Forrest's hometown of Mobile a "candyass" town. He is vulgar, violent, toothless in front, with wild hair, not very tall but "he look like an icebox otherwise". He is so disagreeable that Forrest chooses to live instead in the basement of the dormitory.

Initially harsh toward Forrest, Curtis eventually seems to experience a change in heart: when Forrest flunks from the University, Curtis shakes Forrest's hand as a goodbye. Later, he scores the winning touchdown against the University of Mississippi, and Bubba tells Forrest that Curtis has gotten in trouble for beating up a police officer for giving him a parking ticket.

Near the end of the novel, Curtis is encountered once again in Bayou La Batre. It is revealed that after graduation, he went to play football for the Washington Redskins, was put on waivers for biting the team owner's wife, and played for a few other teams before settling down as a longshoreman. Forrest invites him to work with him in the shrimping business, and he accepts amidst the usual stream of vulgarities.

In Gump & Co., he is depicted as a quarterback for the New York Giants, having presumably left Forrest's shrimping business upon its failure,

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