Playwright, screenwriter Horton Foote Dies

Playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote, who movingly portrayed the broken dreams of common people in “The Trip to Bountiful,” “Tender Mercies” and his Oscar-winning screen adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” died Wednesday in Connecticut, Paul Marte, a spokesman for Hartford Stage, said. He was 92.

Foote died in his sleep in his apartment in Hartford where he was preparing work on “The Orphans’ Home Cycle,” a collection of nine plays, for next September at the nonprofit theater, Marte said.

Foote left the cotton fields of his native Wharton, Texas, as a teenager, dreaming of becoming an actor. But realizing his gifts as a storyteller, he embarked on a writing career that spanned more than half a century and earned him two Academy Awards (“To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Tender Mercies”) and a 1995 Pulitzer Prize for “The Young Man From Atlanta.”


Foote was active in the theater until the end of life. His play, “Dividing the Estate,” the comic tale of a Texas family squabbling over an inheritance, was presented on Broadway this season by Lincoln Center Theater.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29515544/

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Just saw this. I don't know if it rises to LBN as it's not political at all. But he was a darling, darling man. I had the pleasure to meet him. His daughter is is also here in Hartford, currently performing (in a play of To Kill a Mockingbird). He will absolutely be missed.

but glad he went out easy ... R-I-P Horton Foote

edit: spelling

I'm surprised by how sad this is making me...