History of the Award

In February 2002, a new Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration award, the Special Achievement Award for Screenwriting, was established.

The first award went to Horton Foote, Wharton, Texas, an Oscar-Winning and Pulitzer Prize-Winning writer of screenplays, plays, and a non-fiction memoir.

Following the announcement of Foote as the first winner of the award, it was immediately announced that henceforth the award would be named in his honor, the Horton Foote Award for Special Achievement in Screenwriting. Winners must be Southerners who have excelled in writing screenplays.

Called the “American Chekhov, “ Foote at age 16 left home to study acting in Dallas, Texas, then in California at the Pasadena Playhouse, and finally in New York. At first he wrote plays to provide himself with attractive parts, but he became fascinated with writing and gained acclaim with such plays as The Young Man from Atlanta (which won a Pulitzer Prize), The Trip to Bountiful (which won an Indie Award for Best Writer), The Chase, The Traveling Lady, On Valentine’s Day, and Convicts.

Foote’s new play, The Carpetbagger’s Children, which was performed to great acclaim in Houston, Minneapolis and Hartford, Conn., played from March until June 2002 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in New York. Again, critics were universal in their praise for Foote’s work.

Foote is also lauded for such screenplays as Storm Fear, To Kill a Mockingbird (which won an Oscar), Baby, the Rain Must Fall, Hurry Sundown, Tomorrow (an adaptation of William Faulkner’s work), Tender Mercies (which won a second Oscar), and a remake of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. He is also author of a recent memoir, Farewell, which tells his own story and that of people who inspired his characters.

The Horton Foote Award for screenwriting is the brainchild of Gerald McRaney, an award-winning film and television actor of Mississippi and Sherman Oaks, Calif. Since the Natchez Literary Celebration in 2001 changed its name at McRaney’s suggestion to Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration to reflect its increased focus on film, McRaney suggested a writing award for that medium.

The Horton Foote Award is underwritten by The Mississippi Film Office, Division of Tourism, Mississippi Development Authority.

(1)  2003: Billy Bob Thornton of Hot Springs, Ark., and Hollywood, Calif. With the film Sling Blade, Thornton made his mark as star, screenwriter, and director. Other films that Thornton has written (with Tom Epperson) are One False Move and A Family Thing.

Thornton’s awards for screenplay writing include a Writers Guild of America Award  and an Academy Award, both for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published for Sling Blade.

In addition, Thornton has won numerous awards as a filmmaker, including the  National Board of Review Special Achievement Award in Filmmaking for Sling Blade and the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature for Sling Blade.

A noted actor, Thornton has won the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for  Best Actor for Sling Blade, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Simple Plan, Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Simple Plan, Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor for Primary Colors and A Simple Plan, Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Simple Plan, and Chicago Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Simple Plan.  Other films in which Thornton has had key roles are U-Turn, One False Move, Pushing Tin, The Apostle, and Armageddon

(2)   2004: Gail Gilchriest of Los Angeles and East Texas. With the screenplay adaptation of Willie Morris’ novel, My Dog Skip, and the teleplay adaptation of Eudora Welty’s novella, The Ponder Heart, Gail Gilchriest has won a devoted following.

Her feature films in addition to My Dog Skip include Scarlett Fever (a.k.a. The Belle), a feature-length romantic comedy inspired by Gone With the Wind; High Hopes (a.k.a. Suddenly Yours), a re-write of a feature-length romantic comedy; Crazy Love, re-write of a feature-length romantic comedy; and The Haunting of Hiram C. Hopgood, a screenplay adaptation of a British children’s book by Eva Ibbotson.

Gilchriest’s television credits in addition to The Ponder Heart include And Baby Makes Three, one third of a triology along with Beth Henley and Rodney Vaccaro; and Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!, a teleplay adaptation of a novel by Fannie Flagg, produced by Oprah Winfrey and Kate Forte.

In addition, Gilchriest has written a Walt Disney Television Animation, The Return of the Diamond Avenger, and two books, Bubbas and Beaus and The Cowgirl Companion. She also wrote two documentary films, O Cowgirls! and an A&E Biography: Tyrone Power: The Last Idol.

She has worked in television advertising with FX True Stories, Lifetime Sports, and The Learning Channel. Her journalism experience includes reporting and column writing for The Houston Post and writing for such magazines as Elle, Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan, and Texas Monthly.

Gilchriest holds a bachelor’s degree from The University of Texas at Austin and attended a creative writing program at Columbia University and a graduate screenwriting workshop at New York University.

She has received the 2000 Christopher Award in New York for My Dog Skip; the Quarterfinalist Award from the Chesterfield Writers’ Film Project, Los Angeles; the Quarterfinalist Award from the Cinestory Screenwriter’s Conservatory, Chicago; the Quarterfinalist Award from the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship, Los Angeles; and the “Katie” Award for Feature Writing from the Press Club of Dallas.

(3)   2005: Callie Khouri of Los Angeles, born Carolyn Ann Khouri in Texas, lived in Texas, Kentucky, and Tennessee when growing up. She attended Purdue University and later moved to Los Angeles to study at the Strasburg Institute. She is the writer of the screenplays Thelma & Louise, Something to Talk About, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and Mad Money. She also directed and produced Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Mad Money. For Thelma & Louise, she won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen; a Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay – Motion Picture; and a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen. In addition, she was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award for Best Original Screenplay for Thelma & Louise.

(4) 2006: Beth Henley, born Elizabeth Becker Henley on May 8, 1952, in Jackson, Mississippi. Growing up, Henley always dreamed of becoming an actress. After graduating from high school, she attended Southern Methodist University where she wrote her first play, a one-act entitled Am I Blue, which was produced at SMU's Margo Jones Theatre in 1973.

Henley's first professionally produced play, Crimes of the Heart, was the co-winner of the 1979 Great American Play Contest sponsored by the Actors Theatre of Louisville. A black comedy about three sisters, one of whom has just shot her husband, Crimes of the Heart then moved to New York where it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play of 1981.

Henley's other plays include The Wake of Jamey Foster (1982), Am I Blue (1982), The Miss Firecracker Contest (1984), The Debutante Ball (1985), The Lucky Spot (1986), Abundance (1990), Control Freaks (1992), Signature (1995), L-Play (1996), and Impossible Marriage (1998).

In addition to her stage plays, Ms. Henley has written a number of screenplays including the acclaimed film version of Crimes of the Heart which was nominated for an Academy Award and featured Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek, and Sam Shepard. Other screenplays by Henley include Miss Firecracker starring Holly Hunter, Mary Steenburgen, and Tim Robbins, and Nobody's Fool starring Rosanna Arquette and Eric Roberts. She also collaborated on True Stories (1986) with Steven Trobolowsky and David Byrne, the lead singer of the Talking Heads, who directed and starred in the film.

In 2000 Ms. Henley won the Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award for her playwriting skills. By winning the Horton Foote Award in 2006, she becomes the Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration’s only multiple award winner.

5) 2007: Charles Burnett, native of Vicksburg, Miss., now of Los Angeles. He is author of the screenplays Killer of Sheep; To Sleep with Anger; My Brother’s Wedding; Guests of Hotel Astoria; The Glass Shield; When It Rains; Nightjohn; The Wedding; Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland; Selma, Lord, Selma; The Annihilation of Fish; Olivia’s Story; Finding Buck McHenry; and Bless Their Little Hearts.

6) 2008: Alfred Fox Uhry, native of Atlanta, Ga. A graduate of Brown University, Uhry worked first for the stage as a lyricist and librettist. His first major work was The Robber Bridegroom (1975), a musical composed by Robert Waltman based on a novella by Eudora Welty. Uhry received his first Tony award nomination for this play.

He also co-wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film Mystic Pizza.

Driving Miss Daisy (1987) is the first in what is known as his "Atlanta Trilogy" of plays, all set during the first half of the 20th century. The play earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It deals with the relationship between an elderly Jewish woman and her black chauffeur. He adapted it into the screenplay for a 1989 film starring Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, an adaptation which was awarded the Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay.

The second of the trilogy, The Last Night of Ballyhoo (1996), is set in 1939 during the premiere of the film Gone with the Wind. It deals with a Jewish family during an important social event. It was commissioned for the Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta which coincided with the 1996 Summer Olympics, and received the Tony Award for Best Play.

The third was a 1998 musical called Parade, about the 1913 lynching of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank. The book for the play earned him a.Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical.