Shelby foote
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Horton Foote
Photo Courtesy of Keith Carter
Albert Horton Foote Jr. was born on March 14, 1916, in the town of Wharton, Texas. He was only a year old when his parents moved to a house that his maternal grandparents had built for them on a lot that was basically his grandparents’ back yard. Although he left home at 16 to pursue his dream of becoming an actor, and lived most of his life in New York, both city and suburb, New Hampshire or California, it was the house he regarded as home for the next 90 years. It was on the front porch of that house that he also heard for the first time many of the stories he would later use as the basis for the more than 60 plays, movies and TV dramas that comprise the Foote literary canon.
When he was 12 years old, Foote informed his parents he wanted to be an actor when he grew up. Although dismayed by the decision, Foote’s father paid for him to attend the Pasadena Playhouse to study acting. After two years in Pasadena, Foote went to New York and continued his training with the Russian émigrés Tamara Daykarhanova, Vera Soloviova and Andrius J
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By Robert Heide
The first time I met Horton Foote was at a Christmas party in Greenwich Village, at an old-time apartment building on Washington Square North, hosted annually by actress and Berghof Studio teacher Rochelle Oliver. Attendees included Uta Hagen and Matthew Broderick, who both lived in apartments upstairs. Horton Foote came with his daughter Hallie Foote. An avid admirer of his work, I was thrilled and in awe to find myself face to face with him as we both sipped holiday rum eggnog. I told him how much I liked his play The Young Man from Atlanta, having its premiere produced by Primary Stages, starring Shirley Knight and Rip Torn. For that play Foote won the Pulitzer Prize (1995.) Many theater scholars and writers have referred to him as the “American Chekhov.” Once, chatting at the Lion’s Head bar on Christopher Street with actor Robert Duvall, who starred in the brilliant film Tender Mercies (1983) in which both he and Foote took home Academy Awards, he for the best actor and Foote for best original screenplay, Duvall spoke of the famous playwright as “the rura
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Horton Foote
American playwright and screenwriter (1916-2009)
Albert Horton Foote Jr. (March 14, 1916 – March 4, 2009) was an American playwright and screenwriter. He received Academy Awards for To Kill a Mockingbird, which was adapted from the 1960 novel of the same name by Harper Lee,[1] and the film, Tender Mercies (1983). He was also known for his notable live television dramas produced during the Golden Age of Television.
Foote received the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play The Young Man From Atlanta. He was the inaugural recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2000, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.[2]
Early life
Foote was born in 1916 in Wharton, Texas, the son of Harriet Gautier "Hallie" Brooks and Albert Horton Foote.[3] His younger brothers were Thomas Brooks Foote (1921–44), who died in aerial combat over Germany during World War II, and John Speed Foote (1923–95).
Television
Foote moved to California, where he studied theater at the Pas
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