Publisher Description

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Horton Foote has chronicled the experiences of American life in both his internationally acclaimed plays and his Academy Award-winning screenplays To Kill a Mockingbird and Tender Mercies. Now, in this poignant and delightful memoir, he tells the story of how he discovered his own vocation.
Horton Foote recalls his youthful aspirations, leaving his Depression-era Texas home to become an actor at age sixteen. He lands in New York City to search for work -- and to study with some of the great Russian and American drama teachers of the 1930s. But after mixed results on the stage, he finally recognizes his true passion: the written word.
Collaborating with such legendary talents as Tennessee Williams, Agnes de Mille, and Lillian Gish, Foote thrived in a world of artistic commitment and creative passion. Yet through it all, Horton maintained his genuine Southern charm, often returning home to Wharton, the town that nurtured and inspired him as a storyteller.
From one of the most moving and distinctive voices of our time, Beginnings is a rare, personal look at a fascinating era in American life and at the making of an American literary icon.

Author Biography

Horton Foote, born in Wharton, Texas, in 1916, has written and adapted over fifty plays and screenplays, including The Trip to Bountiful, The Young Man from Atlanta, Tender Mercies, and To Kill a Mockingbird. In 1996 he was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame, and in 1998, to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, from which he received the Gold Medal for Drama for his life's work. Foote has won two Oscars, a Pulitzer Prize, Writers Guild awards, and the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for Drama, and was most recently awarded the president's National Medal of Arts from former President Bill Clinton.

Review

Anthony Day Los Angeles Times Lovely, modest reflections of a fine American writer faithful to his memories and devoted to his art.
Mel Gussow The New York Times Mr. Foote...continues to expand his humanistic vision, welcoming his readers...to share his knowledge of essential home truths.
N. Graham Nesmith The New York Times Book Review Charming and refreshingly wholesome.

Review Quote

N. Graham NesmithThe New York Times Book ReviewCharming and refreshingly wholesome.

Excerpt from Book

Chapter 1 By the time our bus was reaching the outskirts of Los Angeles there were very few of the original Dallas passengers left. James Hall''s sister was still here but somewhere back in New Mexico she had gotten bored with me and changed seats and now I could hear her talking away with a man who had come aboard in Phoenix. I was sitting next to a lady from Tucson now. She was worried to death about the Depression. She and her husband had lost everything because of it, and she wanted to know if I thought Roosevelt was doing enough. I said I had great faith in Roosevelt. She asked me why, but I couldn''t answer that except to say that my father had and he knew a lot about politics. She sighed and looked out the window and then I began to think of Pasadena and tried to imagine what the playhouse might look like. "Excuse me," the lady said. "What does your father do?" "He has a men''s clothing store and he manages my grandmother''s cotton farms." "Are you an only child?" she wanted to know. Why on earth, I couldn''t imagine. "No, ma''am, I have two brothers." "Older or younger?" "Younger." "I have no children." She sighed when she said that. "Yes, ma''am." "Your parents are blessed to have three children. My husband and I wanted children, but the Lord saw it another way. Bless be the name of the Lord. Where are you going, young man?" "Pasadena." "Why?" "Because I want to be an actor." There was a pause while she thought that over. "I would think," she said, "you would go to Hollywood for that, if you want to be in the movies." "Yes, ma''am, but I don''t want to be in the movies. I want to go on the stage and there is a school in Pasadena that will teach you about acting." "About acting?" she asked and she seemed genuinely puzzled. "Yes, ma''am." There was a pause again as she thought that over. Then she sighed and looked at me and said, "What does it cost to learn something like that?" "Five hundred dollars for the first year and two hundred and fifty dollars for the second year." "My God," she said, sighing. "That''s expensive." "I know it is," I said. "Do they guarantee you a job when you finish your schooling?" "No, ma''am." "Mercy," she said, sighing again. "How much did you say?" "Five hundred dollars the first year and two hundred and fifty dollars the second." "Let''s see," she said. "What does that come to?" "Seven hundred and fifty dollars," I said. A figure my father had drummed into my head. "Mercy," she said, sighing. "Your people must be rich." "No, ma''am," I said. "Not my daddy anyway. I have a grandmother that''s pretty well off I''m told." "Is she paying for it?" "No, ma''am, my daddy is." She sighed again then and closed her eyes. I looked out the window of the bus, but I couldn''t see much except houses that looked like houses anywhere, or at least like houses I could see anytime in Texas. The lady opened her eyes then and looked up at me, and said, "Seven hundred and fifty dollars is a fortune to me. A fortune." "Yes, ma''am," I said, and I wished she would get off the subject. I felt guilty enough about my daddy spending the money without her going on about it. "We lost our home," the lady said, "Our car. My God, this Depression is a terrible thing. Terrible." "Yes, ma''am," I said. "I know it is," and I knew in my heart it certainly must be, and I knew I should be concerned about it, and worry about it like my daddy and his friends at his store, but all I could think about was getting to Pasadena and starting school. My mother had told me that my Great Aunt Mag and her husband, Uncle Walt, were going to meet me at the Los Angeles bus station, and then I began to worry about what I would do if for some reason they couldn''t get there. How would I get to Pasadena? Now stop worrying about that, I said to myself. My mother says they are very dependable and they''re sure to be there. Before I had a chance to worry any further the lady next to me took two snapshots from her purse and held them up for me to see. "This is the picture of the house we lost to the bank," she said. "And this is the car. I''m going to Los Angeles to stay with my people until my husband can get on his feet again. We have no children, thank God. I don''t know what we''d do if we had children to feed and clothe. I hope to heavens your father is right and Roosevelt does know what he''s doing. Why does it take so long? This is September, September nineteen hundred and thirty-four. He''s had almost two years. How long is it going to take?" I looked out the window, but it was getting dark now and I couldn''t see much except for lights coming from the houses we were passing. The lady next to me called out to the lady across the aisle. "This boy," she said pointing to me, "is going to acting school. It''s costing seven hundred and fifty dollars. Isn''t that right, son?" "Yes, ma''am," I said closing my eyes, hoping she would leave me alone, when the bus driver called out: "We''re coming into Los Angeles." I tried to look out the window again but it was pitch black outside now and I couldn''t see anything but the lights of houses and cars. Then I could see streetlights and buildings and more cars and people on the sidewalks and the lady across the aisle said, "We''re almost at the terminal now." We rode on for another five or ten minutes and the bus pulled into the terminal, which was all lit up and seemed much larger than the Houston or Dallas bus terminals. The bus driver stopped the bus and called out, "Los Angeles!" and everyone began to get up from their seats. The lady next to me patted me on the arm as we started down the aisle and said, "Good luck to you, son," and I thanked her. I got off the bus and followed the people into the terminal. I saw Aunt Mag and Uncle Walt right away and they saw me. Aunt Mag hugged me and kissed me and Uncle Walt shook my hand as he said, "Welcome to California." Aunt Mag was my grandmother''s next-to-youngest sister. She immediately began asking question after question about our family in Texas. She idolized my grandmother and constantly interrupted my answers with descriptions of her kindness. She continued the questioning while we went to pick up my suitcase, which Uncle Walt insisted on carrying. Finally she stopped long enough to ask if I was hungry. I said I was, and she asked if I would mind eating in a cafeteria. I said I didn''t know as I never had. I was about to say that wherever they wanted to eat would be fine with me, but before I could she began to explain why she preferred this cafeteria. Not because it was cheaper than a restaurant, but because the food was the best she knew of in Los Angeles, and without looking at Uncle Walt she asked if he agreed. He nodded his head that he did, and I said that all I knew about cafeterias was that my Aunt Laura and Erin May went to one in Houston and got ptomaine poisoning from eating some butterscotch pie. "Well, that was Houston," Aunt Mag said. "Nothing like that could happen in Los Angeles, could it, Walt?" When we got to the cafeteria they instructed me to pick up a tray, napkin, silverware and showed me where to stand in line. I had not seen so much food on display before in my life and I had great difficulty making a decision about what to eat. I hadn''t been able to sleep much on the bus, but I was so exhilarated about finally being in California that I didn''t feel tired. The cafeteria seemed very glamorous, lit up as it was, and decorated in what seemed to me a very modern fashion. During dinner she said they would show me some of the sights if I was interested. I said I was. After we finished eating we got in their car and Uncle Walt drove us around Los Angeles. We passed some palm trees and Aunt Mag said, "I guess you know what they are?" "Yes, ma''am," I said. "Palm trees." They seemed much larger than the palm trees I''d seen in Houston and Galveston. I asked my father once why we didn''t have any in Wharton, and he said our soil was the wrong kind for palm trees. "Aunt Mag," I asked. "Do the palm trees have coconuts?" "No," she said. "They don''t. Why is that, Walt?" "Why is what?" he asked. "Why don''t our palm trees have coconuts?" "I don''t know," he said. "I''ve never heard." "Well, you should ask somebody," she said. "I will," he said. "One day." "That''s your Uncle Walt, for you," she said. "No curiosity about anything." My mother and grandmother had assured me Aunt Mag and Uncle Walt would have me stay in their Los Angeles apartment for an evening. Then they would drive me over to the YMCA in Pasadena where I would stay until the school office assigned me to a boardinghouse. After an hour or so of riding I was beginning to feel tired and I was about to ask if we could go to their apartment so I could get to bed, when Aunt Mag said, "Walt, we''d better take him out to Pasadena, so he can get settled." I wanted to say, Oh no, ma''am, I''m supposed to stay with you and Uncle Walt tonight, but I felt shy and couldn''t bring myself to say it. Pasadena was quite a drive from Los Angeles. Aunt Mag pointed out that we were passing through orange groves to get there, and it was too bad it was so dark out because they were quite beautiful. When we finally got to the YMCA, I was so tired I could hardly

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