Albert Horton Foote, Jr. (March 14, 1916March 4, 2009) was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his screenplays for the 1962 film
To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film
Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the
Golden Age of Television. He received the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995 for his play
The Young Man From Atlanta and two Academy Awards, one for an original screenplay,
Tender Mercies, and one for adapted screenplay,
To Kill a Mockingbird. In 1995, Foote was the inaugural recipient of the
Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In describing his three-play work,
The Orphans' Home Cycle, the drama critic for the
Wall Street Journal said this: "Foote, who died last March, left behind a masterpiece, one that will rank high among the signal achievements of American theater in the 20th century." In 2000, he was awarded the
National Medal of Arts.