On this day in movie and book history - To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

 

To Kill a Mockingbird

directed by Robert Mulligan,

written by Horton Foote,

based on the novel by Harper Lee,

was released in the United States on December 25, 1962.

Music by Elmer Bernstein.

Cast:

Gregory Peck, John Megna, Frank Overton, Rosemary Murphy, Ruth White, Brock Peters, Estelle Evans, Paul Fix, Collin Wilcox Paxton, James Anderson, Alice Ghostley, Robert Duvall, William Windom, Crahan Denton, Richard Hale, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford, R.L. Armstrong, Walter Bacon, Eddie Baker, Bobby Barber, John Barton, Audrey Betz, Danny Borzage, John Breen, Jess Cavin, Noble 'Kid' Chissell, Jack Clinton, Steve Condit, May Couch, David Crawford, Frank Ellis, Jamie Forster, Charles Fredericks, Raoul Freeman, Herman Hack, Jester Hairston, Chuck Hamilton, Kim Hamilton, Kim Hector, Michael Jeffers, Dick Johnstone, Chester Jones, Colin Kenny, Ethan Laidlaw, Nancy Marshall, Clyde McLeod, Charles McQuary, Charles Morton, Paulene Myers, William H. O'Brien, Charles Perry, Joe Ploski, Hugh Sanders, Barry Seltzer, Edward C. Short, Mabel Smaney, Eddie Smith, Walter Smith, Cap Somers, George Sowards, Ray Spiker, Kim Stanley, Jay Sullivan, Kelly Thordsen, Arthur Tovey, George Tracy, Sailor Vincent, Max Wagner, Bill Walker, Joe Walls, Dan White, Guy Wilkerson, Chalky Williams.

Recommended reading - To Kill  Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee.
 
First published 1960.
Published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0060935464
ISBN-13: 978-0060935467
 
Description:
 
Winner of the 1961 Pulitzer Prize.
 
Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read.
 

“A first novel of such rare excellence that it will no doubt make a great many readers slow down to relish more fully its simple distinction. . . . A novel of strong contemporary national significance.” – Chicago Tribune.

 

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South – and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred.

 

One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father – a crusading local lawyer – risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

Born on this day – Harper Lee:

 

Harper Lee

Writer

April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016

Credits:

Books:

To Kill a Mockingbird (1960); Go Set a Watchman (2015); The Harper Lee Collection (2015); To Kill a Mockingbird: A Graphic Novel, by Harper Lee and Fred Fordham (2018).

Awards:

The Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for To Kill a Mockingbird.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 for her contribution to literature.

Movies, video, television and stage:

Cedar Cove (2015); Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders (2017); Hollywood Insider (2022); I riassuntini (2018); Inside Edition (2015); Mockingbird (2023); PBS NewsHour (2016); The Capote Tapes (2019); The Merv Griffin Show (1963); To Kill a Mockingbird (1962); To Kill a Mockingbird (2014); To Kill a Mockingbird (2018 stage play, starring Jeff Daniels).

Harper Lee, on writing:

Writing is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer.

There are people who write, but I think they’re quite different from people who must write.

– Harper Lee.