Horton Foote: America's Storyteller - Hardcover

Hampton, Wilborn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416566406 ISBN 13: 9781416566403

Publisher: Free Press, 2009

Synopsis

The first comprehensive biography of one of America’s greatest playwrights, whose work—from The Trip to Bountiful to the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird—has helped shape American life for more than sixty years.

Horton Foote has garnered a Pulitzer Prize and two Academy Awards. Frank Rich, the drama critic for The New York Times, hailed him as "one of America’s living literary wonders," an artist whose subtlety "suggests a collaboration between Faulkner and Chekhov." His work has touched millions and captured the soul of the nation more incisively than any other playwright, yet Horton Foote’s own story is largely unknown to the general public.

Wilborn Hampton, a theater critic for The New York Times who has shared a friendship with Foote for twenty years, has crafted a colorful, compulsively readable biography that recounts Foote’s rich life and extraordinary career, spanning much of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, and ranging from small-town Texas to Broadway to Hollywood. For six decades, through works such as Tender Mercies and The Young Man from Atlanta, Foote has chronicled the struggles of ordinary people to maintain their dignity in the face of hardship and change. Today, in his nineties, he is still vital and productive.

Hampton affords readers a unique view into his subject’s life and work, his artistic inspirations, and his commitment to portraying American life as he saw it, even at times when no one would listen. Candid and compelling, this is a window into the heart and mind of an extraordinary talent, and into the psyche of America itself.

About this title

About the Author

Wilborn Hampton is a theater critic for The New York Times. Over the past twenty years, he has reviewed more than 500 stage productions, and he has also published several Young Adult nonfiction books. He lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly

Playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote's illustrious career was capped shortly before his death in 2009 with the highly acclaimed play Dividing the Estate, which like so much of his work, reflects Foote's smalltown Texas origins and draws on the stories he heard from his wealthy grandmother, black neighbors and servants. In this authorized biography, Hampton, Foote's friend and a New York Times theater critic, reviews the life and career of the man who also won Oscars for his screenplays for To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies and a Pulitzer for his play The Young Man from Atlanta. Born in 1916 in Wharton, Tex., Foote shifted gears from an unsuccessful acting career when, in 1939, choreographer Agnes de Mille suggested he write a play. According to Hampton, the 1980s was Foote's most satisfying professionally, with the huge success of the film Trip to Bountiful, and the attention of New York Times theater critic Frank Rich, which helped bring Foote back to Broadway. Charting the highs and lows of Foote's remarkable career, this respectful and genial biography will best be appreciated by Foote's devoted fans, theater enthusiasts and budding playwrights and screenwriters. (Sept. 8)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1416566406
• ISBN 13: 9781416566403
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304