Horton Foote

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and two-time Oscar-winner Horton Foote was originally an actor who began writing plays as a member of the American Actors Theatre in order to assure himself good parts. However, when critics praised his playwriting over his acting, he eventually took the hint and devoted himself to writing that has earned acclaim for its poignant evocations of rural America. Much of Foote's work has centered around Wharton, TX, the town of his birth, from his first produced play "Wharton Dance" (1940) to the nine-play series about four generations of his Texas forebearers, "The Orphans' Home," which yielded the films "1918" (1985), "On Valentine's Day" (1986) and "Convicts" (1991), among others. In addition to adapting his own work for the screen, he has also penned screen adaptations of Harper Lee ("To Kill a Mockingbird" 1962), William Faulkner ("Tomorrow" 1972) and John Steinbeck ("Of Mice and Men" 1992).