Horton Foote was born in Wharton, Texas on March 14, 1916. He studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse in California for two years before going to New York and joining Mary Hunter's American Actors Company. While there, he wrote a one-act play called Wharton Dance. After that, he continued to pursue acting and appeared in a few other plays, but primarily focused on writing. After World War II, he moved to Washington D. C. to run the King Smith School with Vincent Donehue. While he was there, he opened the King Smith Theater to all races, the first integrated audiences in the nation's capital. In addition to plays, he wrote for television and film. He was one of the writers for The Gabby… Hayes Show on NBC. He wrote numerous plays including The Chase, The Carpetbagger's Children, and The Orphans' Home. He wrote numerous screenplays for movies including Baby, the Rain Must Fall and The Trip to Bountiful. He won the Pulitzer Prize for The Young Man from Atlanta and two Academy Awards for To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies. He died on March 4, 2009 at the age of 92.
Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama, and educated at Huntington College, the University of Alabama, and Oxford University. She won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for her only book, To Kill a Mockingbird, which also won Best Sellers' Paperback of the Year Award in 1962. The book, a mainstay on school reading lists, was adapted as a feature film in 1962 (starring Gregory Peck, who won a Best Actor award for his portrayal of Atticus Finch), and a London stage play in 1987. Lee was a life-long friend of the author Truman Capote and she assisted him in researching his bestselling book, In Cold Blood. Lee's only published works in the 35 years since… Mockingbird appeared have been a few short articles in various magazines. She travels extensively and still resides in Monroeville.