Horton Foote

Horton Foote, the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist and Oscar-winning screenwriter, was born on March 14, 1916, in Wharton, Texas. He says at the age of ten, he had a "calling" to become an actor, and when he was 16 he convinced his parents to allow him to go to acting school. With their blessing he went to Pasadena, California, where he studied acting for two years at the Pasadena Playhouse. Subsequently, he moved to New York City and studied at Tamara Daykarhanova's Theatre School where he was inculcated with Michael Chekhov's version of the Second Studio technique developed at the Moscow Art Theatre. In time, Foote the dramatist would be hailed as the "American Chekhov," and his education does link him to the Russian master. Foote was one of the founders of the American Actors Company. He racked up some minor roles on stage, and decided that becoming a dramatist was his best insurance policy for ensuring he received decent roles.

He remains active in the 21st century, well into his 90s.

Throughout the 1940s Foote continued to write for the theater, including experimental works. He started to write for television to support himself, soon becoming one of the mainstays of the Golden Age of television drama.

In 1944 he made his Broadway debut with "Only the Heart. " His fate was sealed when he received better reviews for his writing than for his acting.

He wrote teleplays for Days Of Wine & Roses - Cliff Robertson & Piper Laurie, "Playhouse 90" Original TV Version (1956), The Philco Television Playhouse (1948) and The United States Steel Hour (1953).

Nominated for an Emmy in 1959 for adapting Faulkner's short story "The Old Man" for "Playhouse 90," he would win the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Special 42 years later for his second adaptation of the story (Old Man (1997)).

Foote won an Oscar for Best Adapted screenplay for Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), which was the movie debut of Robert Duvall. Foote also continued to prosper on Broadway, with his plays "The Chase," "The Trip to Bountiful" with Lillian Gish and "The Traveling Lady" with Kim Stanley.

After the film of "Mockingbird," Foote adapted "The Traveling Lady" as the movie Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965), but he began to grow disillusioned with Hollywood due to its treatment of his work.

Despite being produced by multiple Oscar-winner Sam Spiegel, adapted by Lillian Hellman, and directed by Arthur Penn, as well as featuring one of Marlon Brando's finest performances, the film version of The Chase (1966) was a debacle. It was excoriated by the critics and a flop at the box office. Now out of favor both in Hollywood and on Broadway, Foote went into an exile of sorts in New Hampshire.

In the 1970s he presented his nine-play cycle "Orphans' Home," based on his family.

Ten years after "To Kill a Mockingbird," Duvall gave a brilliant performance in Tomorrow (1972), the movie made from Foote's adaptation of William Faulkner's eponymous story. The film is a small masterpiece, and was well-reviewed by critics. Foote, whom Duvall calls "the rural Chekhov," wrote an original screenplay for the actor ten years after their collaboration on "Tomorrow.

He remained active as as dramatist and screenwriter throughout the 1980s and '90s, and in 1995, his play "The Young Man From Atlanta," was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

" Tender Mercies (1983) brought both of them Oscars, for Best Original Screenplay for Foote and Best Actor for Duvall.

A couple of years later, Geraldine Page would win the Best Actress Oscar for Foote's The Trip to Bountiful (1985), which brought him his third Academy Award nomination.

Is third cousins with American writer, journalist and historian Shelby Foote, author of "The Civil War: A Narrative", a three-volume history of the American Civil War which would become the partial basis of the iconic Ken Burns PBS documentary miniseries The Civil War (1990). Shelby made numerous appearances in the series while his cousin Horton provided the voice of Jefferson Davis. The great-grandfathers of the two Footes were brothers.

Won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the play "The Young Man from Atlanta".

Was nominated for Broadway's 1997 Tony Award as author of Best Play nominee "The Young Man from Atlanta."

Among Foote's prose works are "Farewell: A Memoir of a Texas Childhood" (1999), an account of life in Wharton, Texas. Hoote created the fictional town of Harrison, Texas, which he used as the locale for many of his plays.

The first two installments of his autobiography, "Farewell," and "Beginnings," were published in 1999 and 2001, respectively.

He was awarded the American National Medal of the Arts in 2000 by the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington D.C.

Nominated for the 2009 Tony Award for Best Play for "Dividing the Estate".