I Am Scout (18 page)

It was the proverbial Cinderella story: from nowhere comes a young writer without benefit of grants, fellowships, or even an apprenticeship at a major newspaper or magazine, who produces, on her first try, a novel snapped up by three American book clubs: Reader's Digest Condensed Books, the Literary Guild, and the Book-of-the-Month Club. In addition, the British Book Society had selected it for its readers, and by the spring of
1961
, translations were under way in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Czechoslovakia.

Truman Capote, who craved winning the Pulitzer or the National Book Award, and hoped he would when
In Cold Blood
was finished, could barely conceal his envy in a letter to Kansas friends: “Well, and wasn't it fine about our dear little Nelle winning the Pulitzer Prize? She has swept the boards.”
31

And there was surely more to come from an author so promising. Nelle had written an essay, “Love—in Other Words,” that appeared in the April issue of
Vogue
magazine. She told reporters that she had several short stories under way. She seemed to have talent and a work ethic that indicated a long career was just beginning.

In its first year,
To Kill a Mockingbird
sold more than
2
,
500
,
000
copies. Nelle wrote to friends in Mobile that W. S. Hoole, director of the University of Alabama libraries, “nearly fell over his size thirteens asking for the manuscript” for his archives, but she didn't give it to him for some reason.
32

Maurice Crain, Annie Laurie Williams, and certainly Tay Hohoff couldn't wait for Nelle's second novel. In July
1961
, a teasing note arrived at Nelle's apartment.

Dear Nelle: TOMORROW IS MY FIRST BIRTHDAY AND MY AGENTS THINK THERE SHOULD BE ANOTHER BOOK WRITTEN SOON TO KEEP ME COMPANY. DO YOU THINK YOU CAN START ONE BEFORE I AM ANOTHER YEAR OLD? We would be so happy if you would. [
SIGNED
] THE MOCKINGBIRD AND ANNIE LAURIE AND MAURICE CRAIN.
33

To reporters asking the same question—what are your plans for a second book?—Nelle replied, “I guess I will have to quote Scarlett O'Hara on that. I'll think about that tomorrow.”
34

The remark was more than apt. Like the heroine from
Gone With the Wind,
for whom unpleasantness and hard decisions could always be put off until an eternal tomorrow, “tomorrow” would never come for Nelle Lee as an author. With her first novel, which became the most popular novel in American literature in the twentieth century, and which readers in surveys rank as the most influential in their lives after the Bible, Nelle seemed poised to begin a career that would launch her into the annals of illustrious American writers.

Nelle in 1961, in the “Colored Only” gallery overlooking the courtroom of the Monroe County Courthouse, where her father once argued cases. (Donald Uhrbrock/Time & Life Pictures)

Harper Lee and her father at home on a summer day. Neighbors asked Mr. Lee to sign their copies of
To Kill a Mockingbird
“Atticus,” which he gladly did. (Donald Uhrbrock/Time & Life Pictures)

Instead, almost from the day of its publication,
Mockingbird
took off and gradually left its author behind.

Chapter 8

“Oh, Mr. Peck!”

One cold night in early January
1962
, Wednesday night services had just ended at the imposing First Baptist Church on Monroeville's town square when a stranger made his way up the front steps through the trickle of worshippers exiting the sanctuary. By his downcast and rough appearance, he appeared to be homeless.
1

“May we help you?” asked one of the ushers.

“I'd like to see the reverend,” came the gruff reply.

The usher assured the man that if he needed a meal or a place to stay, then that could be taken care of. No, that wasn't the problem, said the stranger. He needed to see the reverend. The usher, beckoning over a couple of gentlemen who were busy returning hymnals to the backs of pews, explained the situation. They agreed to accompany the visitor to Dr. L. Reed Polk's office.

Reverend Polk was just hanging up his vestments when the little group appeared on the threshold of his office. He thanked the ushers, invited the tall and rather well-built man in, and shut the door so they could have some privacy.

“What can I do for you?” asked Reverend Polk.

Looking up suddenly and extending his hand, the stranger said, “How do you do, sir? I'm Gregory Peck.”

Peck was in town to meet the Lee family and observe the setting for the character he was going to play in the film version of
To Kill a Mockingbird.
The reason he had stopped at the First Baptist Church, he told Dr. Polk, was that he wanted to speak to someone who knew the town and its people. Dr. Polk had been the minister at First Baptist for more than
15
years. Peck apologized for the disguise, but he didn't want word to get around that he was visiting before he met the reverend. Dr. Polk was amused and flattered that Peck had come directly to him.

For the next hour, the two men talked about the town and about the man Peck was going to play. The actor asked for particulars about Mr. Lee's standing in the community, his thoughts and behaviors—anything that “set Mr. Lee apart” would be helpful. Dr. Polk stood up and demonstrated how Lee had a tendency to fumble with his penknife as he talked and how he paced back and forth. Peck watched intently, making mental notes about how he was going to embody Atticus Finch on the screen.

*   *   *

Actually, Gregory Peck had not been Universal Studios' first choice for the role. Rock Hudson was offered the part. But Pakula didn't want Mr. Hudson; he wanted Peck. The studio agreed that if the latter signed on, then it would provide part of the financing and see to the distribution. Pakula sent the actor a copy of the novel. “I got started on it,” said Peck, “and of course I sat up all night and read straight through it. I understood that they wanted me to play Atticus and I called them at about eight o'clock in the morning and said, ‘If you want me to play Atticus, when do I start? I'd love to play it.'”
2
Peck formed a production company called Brentwood Productions, which would be a three-way partnership with Pakula and Nelle. Peck, however, would have input into the film's casting, the development of the screenplay, and other creative decisions.

Annie Laurie Williams had considerable experience with Hollywood when she sold the rights to Nelle's novel. One of the first books she successfully handled was Margaret Mitchell's
Gone With the Wind.
(Papers of Annie Laurie Williams, Columbia University)

Gregory Peck and Harper Lee took a brisk walk around Monroeville, Alabama, when he visited to meet her father, whom he would portray as Atticus Finch. (
The Monroe Journal
)

With Gregory Peck on board, the next piece of business was turning the novel into a screenplay. Pakula deferred to Nelle before approaching anyone else, but she wasn't interested. First, she was busy with a new novel, also set in the South. Working on it, she told a journalist, was like “building a house with matches.”
3
The second reason was that she didn't mind if someone else pruned the book to fit a feature-length movie. She felt “indifference. After all, I don't write deathless prose.” So Pakula turned to playwright Horton Foote. “I was asked to write the script,” said Foote, “because the actor, producer, and Miss Lee were familiar with my writings.”
4

A stocky, soft-spoken Texan with blue eyes, Foote actually had very little experience as a film writer. The only other screenplay he'd written was a film-noir piece,
Storm Fear
(
1955
), the adaptation of a novel by Clinton Seeley.

When he was given the job of adapting
To Kill a Mockingbird,
he recognized a historical kinship with Nelle. His forebears had come from Alabama and Georgia in the early
1800
s. Nevertheless, he worried about “despoiling the quality of the story” because “it's agonizing to try to get into someone else's psyche and to catch the essence of the work, yet knowing you can't be just literal about it. There has to be a point where you say, ‘Well, the hell with it—I've got to do this job for another medium, and I've got to cut out this over-responsible feeling and roll my sleeves up and get to work.'”
5

At Pakula's urging, Foote ratcheted up the drama by compressing the novel's three years into one. He also added a touch of backstory, too. “Harper never mentions the mother, and I was wondering how I could sneak in that emotional element. I remember as a boy my bedroom was right off the gallery on the porch and when I was supposed to be asleep I would hear things I was not supposed to hear from the adults. This was something I invented for the two children.”
6

Most important, he heightened the intensity of the novel's social criticism. Social protest, particularly about racial conditions in the South, receives more emphasis in Foote's screenplay than it does in Nelle's novel, a reflection of the civil rights movement's growing stronger. To underscore the film's seriousness, Foote removed some of Nelle's satire on “southernness.” Gone are Aunt Alexandra's racist church ladies; Colonel Maycomb, admirer of Stonewall Jackson; and Miss Fischer, the barely competent first-grade teacher from north Alabama.

Foote also added a dab of love interest to the story. Miss Maudie from across the street appears at Atticus's breakfast table one morning, hinting that a romance might be in the offing. Nelle, on the other hand, preferred Atticus to be absolutely asexual—deaf, in fact, according to a political cartoon described in the novel, to the “yoo-hoo”s of ladies in the state capital who find the eligible attorney-legislator attractive.