Horton Foote Centennial

Today marks what would've been the 100th birthday of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Horton Foote. Foote wrote the teleplay for The Shape of the River, in which Franchot Tone played Mark Twain in 1960.

On page 208 of his memoir titled Beginnings, Foote talked about how his feelings for Franchot evolved from an initial disliking to a lasting friendship:

Franchot Tone I avoided like the plague, because he seemed moody and imperious. Many, many years later Franchot played Mark Twain in The Shape of the River, a television play I wrote for Playhouse 90. I had seen his brilliant work as Astroff in Stark Young's translation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and I knew Stark Young regarded him as one of our finest actors. I was impressed at how hard he worked during rehearsals of The Shape of the River and how anxious he was to get it all right, and splendid he was, too. During rehearsals we became fast friends and unlike so many friendships developed in rehearsals ours contininued until his death.