(Albert) Horton (Jr) Foote - Playwriting career, Screenwriting career

Screenwriter, born in Wharton, Texas, USA. Originally a television scriptwriter, he later won Academy Awards for the scripts of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) and Tender Mercies (1983).

Horton Foote (born March 14, 1916 in Wharton, Texas), is a two-time Academy Award and one-time Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning and Tony Award-nominated American author and playwright.

Playwriting career

Foote has had plays produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway and at many regional theatres. They include Getting Frankie Married—and Afterwards, which received its world premiere at South Coast Repertory in 2002, The Carpetbagger's Children, Last of the Thortons, The Chase, The Trip to Bountiful, The Habitation of Dragons, Night Seasons, Tomorrow, The Orphan's Home Cycle (Roots in a Parched Ground, Convicts, Lily Dale, The Widow Claire, Courtship, Valentine's Day, Cousins, The Death of Papa), Dividing the Estate, Talking Pictures, The Roads to Home, Laura Dennis, Vernon Early and many one-act plays.

Screenwriting career

Foote received an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay and the Writers Guild of America Screen Award for his adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird in 1962. His original screenplay Tender Mercies won an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, as well as the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay.

His other film scripts include Baby the Rain Must Fall starring Steve McQueen and Lee Remick, which was based on his play The Travelling Lady.

Foote generally wrote screenplays that were based on his plays, such as the semi-autobiographic trilogy of 1918 (1985), On Valentine's Day (1986) and Courtship (1987).

He also adapted works by other authors such as John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men directed by and starring Gary Sinise with John Malkovich) and William Faulkner (a 1997 television adaptation of Old Man, for which Foote won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing of a Miniseries or Special).

Playwright Lillian Hellman adapted his play for the 1966 film The Chase with Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. Peter Masterson (who starred in such films as The Exorcist and the original version of The Stepford Wives) has directed three screenplays that Foote has written: The Trip to Bountiful, Convicts and the Hallmark Hall of Fame television production of Lily Dale, which starred Mary Stuart Masterson.