Horton Foote

Born on March 14, 1916 in Wharton, Texas, Albert Horton Foote Jr. left the cotton fields of his hometown at age 16 to become an actor. After spending two years studying at the Pasadena Playhouse in California, he moved to New York to succeed on Broadway. There he joined the Mary Hunter theater company, which during rehearsals asked its actors to perform improvisations based on his real experiences. When he noted the great interest in Foote’s improvised stories, one of the company’s collaborators, choreographer Agnes De Mille – Cecil B. De Mille’s niece – asked him if he had never considered becoming a writer. “No,” Foote replied. “What topic was I going to write about?” Then De Mille, who would become a great friend of Foote throughout his life, He gave him some advice that he found quite useful: “Write about the things you know.” When the then very young Foote went home, that same night he wrote a one-act play, ‘Wharton Dance,’ which recounted what Friday dances were like in his town. The company staged another of Foote’s works, ‘Texas Town’, which was unexpectedly attended by Brooks Atkinson, a critic for The Times, who wrote a very complimentary text of his description of the rural environments of the United States.

To survive when he began his writing career, Foote had to combine several jobs, working as an elevator operator and also working in a bookstore. There he fell in love with a co-worker, Lillian Vallish, whom he married in 1945. The two had four children and have remained together until her death in 1992.

Foote began his writing activity on television. He made his film debut with the adaptation of the novel Fear in the Storm , directed by and starring Cornell Wilde. Another adaptation, To Kill a Mockingbird , based on one of the classic works of American literature, written by Harper Lee , earned him the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. He won another Oscar in 1984, for Thanks and Favors , with which Robert Duvall also won the statuette , an interpreter who began his film career with To Kill a Mockingbird .. “Horton’s voice was the great American voice. It was typical of his homeland, but also universal ”, Robert Duvall commented upon learning of his death.

Foote won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for his work ‘Dividing the Estate’. He had the opportunity to write the screenplay for Of Mice and Men , based on a famous novel by heavyweight John Steinbeck . For her part, the prestigious Lillian Hellman was commissioned to adapt one of Foote’s works, which gave rise to The Human Pack , one of Arthur Penn ‘s great films . Foote adapted himself when he turned ‘The Traveling Lady’ into the script for The Last Stand , with Steve McQueen , again directed by Robert Mulligan , the man behind To Kill a Mockingbird .. According to the Los Angeles Times obituary, his works displayed “the poetry of loneliness and loss, Foote’s twin themes, and the terrain that made him an American Chekhov.”