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The life and times of Horton Foote
A Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Academy Award-winning screenwriter, Horton Foote is known as “the Chekhov of the small town” for his subtle, life-affirming stories about everyday people. Nearly 92 years old, he continues to be one of the “strongest, most individual and most abidingly relevant voices in theater (The New York Times)"
Click here for more information on the Horton Foote Festival.
1916
Horton Foote is born on March 14 in Wharton, Texas, to Harriet Gautier Brooks and Albert Horton Foote.
1925
The death of Foote’s grandfather, Grandfather Brooks, marks what Foote sees as the end of the Old South and the beginning of modern Wharton. According to the local Wharton paper, “Springing from the chivalric environs of the Old South, [Brooks] was true to [the] best tradition [of the South]. His place will not be filled in our community life in this generation.” Foote recalls, “Until my grandfather’s death, life seemed to me just magic...back then, death had no reality for me.”
1927
The silent film era ends when Warner Bros. releases the first full-length film with synchronized dialogue sequences: The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson. The era of the “talkies” begins.
1927
Foote receives his “calling” to become an actor: “When I was eleven, I got a call, so to speak, not to be a preacher, but an actor...And I never wavered from that call either until I began writing, some ten years later, and the desire to act left me as suddenly as it had arrived.”
1929-32
Foote acts in high school productions under the direction of Eppie Murphree: “It wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school, when the speech teacher,
Eppie Murphree, arrived, that I found anything in school to really interest me.”
1929-1941
The Great Depression. Foote works part-time in the men’s clothing store owned by his father until 1933. Together, they support their family during the Depression.
1933
One year after graduating from high school, Foote attends acting school at Pasadena Playhouse in California.
1936
Foote moves to New York City to begin his career as an actor. He becomes a founding member of the American Actors Company (AAC).
1939
After a series of improvisation exercises with dancer and choreographer Agnes de Mille, Foote writes his first one-act play, Gulf Storm: “I never in my wildest dreams ever thought I’d ever be a writer.”
1940
Foote returns to Wharton where he writes his first full-length play, Texas Town. It is produced by AAC.
1941-45
World War II. Foote’s brother Tom Brooks, a radio pilot in the Air Force, is shot down in 1944.
1944
Foote’s first published play, Only the Heart, premieres on Broadway starring Mildred Dunnock as India Hamilton, Will Hare as Albert Price, June Walker as Mamie Borden and Maurice Wells as Mr. Borden.
1945
Foote marries Lillian Vallish. He had appeared in a living tableau called “Railroads on Parade” at the 1939 World’s Fair and recalls, “That’s how I got the money to write my first play. My wife came to see that, actually. She didn’t know that she was looking at her future husband...We were very much in love.”
1952-54
Under the direction of Fred Coe, Foote writes a number of television plays with The Philco Television Playhouse. This process leads to the creation of the fictionalized town of Harrison, Texas. Foote would revisit this town throughout his literary career.
1953
Barbara Hallie Foote is born. She is the first of Foote’s four children and will go on to star in many of her father’s plays. She will appear as Jessie Mae Watts in the Goodman’s production of The Trip to Bountiful. As Ben Brantley, drama critic for The New York Times writes, “Hallie Foote, the playwright’s daughter [is], as she has demonstrated in many performances on stage and in film, the ideal interpreter of her father’s work.”
1953
Foote writes The Trip to Bountiful teleplay for The Philco Television Playhouse, which stars the famous film star Lillian Gish as Carrie Watts. Gish was famous for roles in more than 120 films that spanned the silent and the “talkie” eras.
1956
The Foote family moves to Nyack, New York.
1962
Foote writes the script for the film adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird and wins an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film also garners Academy Awards for Best Actor (Gregory Peck) and Best Art Direction.
1965-73
The Vietnam War leads to the politicization of the New York theater scene. Foote leaves theater to write films, including The Chase (1966) and Tomorrow (1972).
1966
The Foote family moves to New Boston, New Hampshire.
1974-78
The death of his mother (1974) and his father (1975) inspires Foote to return to theater with The Orphans’ Home Cycle, a series of nine plays set in Harrison, Texas.
1983
Foote writes Tender Mercies, for which he wins a second Academy Award for Best Screenplay. Robert Duvall also wins an Academy Award for his portrayal
of Mac Sledge.
1985
The Trip to Bountiful is produced as a film. Foote is nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay and Geraldine Page wins an Academy Award for her portrayal of Carrie Watts.
1985
Foote writes Blind Date amidst a series of one-acts.
1991
Foote writes the screenplay for the adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, starring John Malkovich and directed by and starring Gary Sinise.
1992
Lillian Vallish Foote dies. Not only were the Footes happily married for 47 years, but Lillian Foote was also her husband’s co-producer on The Orphans’ Home Cycle and other productions. “My wife I miss enormously, which will be a constant for the rest of my life. But you know, that’s part of life, isn’t it, saying goodbye.”
1994
Foote writes Talking Pictures as part of a season-long tribute to his work at Signature Theatre Company in New York.
1995
Foote writes the Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Young Man from Atlanta, which was produced at the Goodman in 1997 directed by Robert Falls and starring Rip Torn, Shirley Knight and William Biff McGuire. The production moved to New York, taking Foote to Broadway for the first time since the 1954 production of The Traveling Lady.
2000
President Clinton awards Foote the National Medal of Arts.
2002
Foote writes The Actor for the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.
2007
Foote’s new play, Dividing the Estate, premieres off-Broadway at 59E59 Theater in October. At the age of 91, Horton Foote is still writing and is involved in the theater community. He has no thought of retiring.
2008
The Goodman produces the Horton Foote Festival celebrating Horton Foote’s illustrious career.