I Am Scout (19 page)

In spite of the changes, Nelle later hailed Foote's screenplay. “If the integrity of a film adaptation is measured by the degree to which the novelist's intent is preserved, Foote's screenplay should be studied as a classic.”
7

Director Bob Mulligan, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. “You know what your problem is,” he told Alan Pakula, after reading Foote's work, “too often you lose the point of view of the children.”
8
It was true, but Foote had chosen to thrust Atticus onto center stage at the expense of the children's coming-of-age story, believing the adult character would appeal to moviegoers.

A still more drastic change was contemplated. Before Peck had even read the screenplay, he wanted to drop the title
To Kill a Mockingbird.
Annie Laurie, who had assured Nelle that the novel's artistic integrity would be respected, was furious. “Don't believe any items you may see in the newspapers saying that Gregory Peck wants to change the title of
To Kill a Mockingbird,
” she wrote to George Stevens, managing editor at J. B. Lippincott. “He has been signed to play the part of Atticus, but has no right to say what the title of the picture will be. The change of title has been denied by Mulligan and Pakula in a column story in the
New York Times.
”
9

Nevertheless, Peck was the star of the film and had a considerable financial stake in it. Moreover, he had the support of Universal Studios in his back pocket. In ways that mattered, the film was more his than anybody else's.

*   *   *

After speaking to the Reverend Polk in his church office, Peck and his wife checked in at the ranch-style LaSalle Hotel in Monroeville. The following morning, Peck visited the Lees.

A. C. Lee was looking forward to meeting the actor, although he was feeling tired as a result of a mild heart attack. He'd never met a film star. For that matter, he'd never seen Gregory Peck in a movie. The two men sat in the living room getting to know each other, while Nelle and Alice had to keep shooing away neighbors who were trying to peek in through the picture window. Peck got the impression that the elderly lawyer “was much amused by the invasion of these Hollywood types. He looked on us with benign amusement.”
10
They got along together well.

After an hour or so of conversation, Nelle offered to take Peck on a short tour of the square with a stop-off for lunch. The weather was brisk and overcast, but Peck, dressed in only a lightweight suit, gamely followed Nelle, who was wearing a parka, jeans, white socks, and sneakers, around town until they arrived at the Wee Diner.

The Wee Diner was two Montgomery buses joined at a
45
-degree angle, head to rear, creating a triangular courtyard effect. The intersection served as the entrance. To rustle up customers, owner Frank Meigs put a chopped onion on the grill and turned on the exhaust fan, a welcome smell to Nelle and Peck on such a chilly January day. They took one of the booths and ordered.

Suddenly through the door came Wanda Biggs, the official hostess for the Welcome Wagon. She had been tracking them all over town, she said breathlessly. On behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, she presented Gregory Peck with a basket of gifts and coupons for newcomers. “He was as polite and kind a man I had ever met,” she later told everyone. “He asked if I would mind taking it to his wife across the street at the hotel. That he would like for me to meet her. I did and found her to be equally as warm and friendly. They were just our kind of folks.”
11

Nelle and Peck's final stop after the Wee Diner was the home of Charles Ray Skinner. The production crew arranged to meet them there because they wanted to photograph what servants' quarters looked like in an older home. Peck made small talk with Skinner about the spacious kitchen, including that he'd never had a real down-home Southern meal.

Probably as a result of that remark, by seven thirty that evening, the lobby of the LaSalle Hotel was jammed with ladies bringing covered dishes. Peck left a message at the front desk expressing his thanks and asked that items for him be left for him to pick up. Not to be denied, teenager Martha Jones and a friend pushed through to the receptionist and asked which room Mr. and Mrs. Peck were staying in. She told them huffily that the Pecks were not in at present. The two girls got in their car and drove around town on a scavenger hunt until they spotted Nelle's car outside the Monroe Motor Court. Door by door they listened in. Finally, hearing voices, they knocked on one, and were confronted by Nelle, who was obviously not amused.

“Martha Louise Jones, what are you doing here?”

“I was just hoping I could get Mr. Peck's autograph.”

Beyond Nelle, Martha could see Mr. Peck, his wife, and Mr. Lee.

“Well, we're busy now. You just go on home,” ordered Nelle, and began to shut the door.

“Hold on, Nelle,” Peck interrupted. “I'll be glad to give the young ladies my autograph.” Star struck, the two fans offered him damp scraps of paper. He signed both and then bid the girls a gracious good night.
12

The following morning, until it was time to leave, Mr. and Mrs. Peck didn't venture outside the LaSalle Hotel lest they send the town into a second uproar. Frank Meigs sent over breakfast from the Wee Diner, and later Peck sent him a handwritten note expressing his gratitude.

*   *   *

Production on the film was scheduled to begin in early February in Hollywood, and Nelle had been invited to attend. But she had also promised Truman she would go with him to Kansas again after Christmas. So during the middle of January—two weeks after Peck had left Monroeville—she was back in Garden City, once again as Truman's “assistant researchist,” though by now her profile in town was higher than his.

“It was pretty dicey for Nelle, as she was known by local people who had come to like her very much,” said Dolores Hope.

She was always very protective of Capote and made sure the limelight was on him most of the time. She was quick to divert mention of the Pulitzer Prize back to Capote. She also gave him credit for his help and encouragement. My impression of the Pulitzer time is that people who had come to know Truman here in Kansas just had a gut feeling that he would have his nose out of joint about it. Nelle knew him so well and she was anything but an attention-getter herself. In fact, she shunned it. She was the exact opposite of Truman, being more interested in others than she was in herself.
13

Her stay was necessarily brief, however, because filming was slated to begin in a few weeks. Consequently, at the end of the first week of February, she boarded the Super Chief in Garden City, having finished helping Truman, and continued on to Los Angeles. Total sales of her book, hardback and paperback, were approaching four and a half million.

Casting had been completed just in the nick of time, with some of the roles settled on just weeks before shooting began. Pakula and Mulligan preferred faces audiences wouldn't recognize, “to retain the sense of discovery, which is so important in the novel,” Pakula said.
14
They turned to character actors from films, Broadway professionals—unfamiliar then to most film-going audiences—and, for the roles of the children, complete unknowns. Another newcomer was Robert Duvall, who had impressed Foote when Duvall gave a first-rate performance in Foote's drama
The Midnight Caller
at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. To prepare for the role of Boo Radley, Duvall stayed out of the sun for six weeks and dyed his hair blond, thinking it would give him an angelic look.

The competition for the role of Tom Robinson was down to two actors: Brock Peters and James Earl Jones. Peters badly wanted the part because his career seemed to be slipping into a rut of playing villains. “Well, of course, I was scared out of my wits,” he remembered. “I didn't know how to present myself in order to get this coveted prize. I went into the meeting—it was in a building at Park Avenue and
57
th Street and I tried not to appear frightened but I wanted to look cool and calm and still suggest the character of Tom Robinson, and do that dressed in a suit.”
15
He got the part, and a few days before filming began, Peck called to congratulate him. Peters was so surprised he didn't know what to say at first. “I worked over the years in many, many productions, but no one ever again called me to welcome me aboard, except perhaps the director and the producer, but not my fellow actor-to-be.”
16

The part of Bob Ewell, the poor white who accuses Tom Robinson, was still open when actor James Anderson met with Bob Mulligan. Raised in Alabama, Anderson told Mulligan with conviction, “I know this man.” Mulligan believed he did, but he also had to confront Anderson with his reputation for drinking, fighting, and not showing up to sets. He told Anderson to come back in three days (probably to see whether he would be on time and sober). When Anderson arrived, Mulligan laid it on the line: “I want you to be in this movie but you and I are going to have to have a clear understanding. And you're going to have to take my hand and shake it. If you do, you have to promise me that you will be sober, that you will be on time, that you will not cause trouble for me or for anyone. And that you will do honor to this script. He said, ‘I understand.' He put out his hand and shook mine, and he kept his word.”
17

The role of Jem went to
13
-year-old Phillip Alford, a child with practically no acting experience who auditioned only because his parents promised him a day off from school. Hundreds of children competed for the roles of the Finch children, including nine-year-old Mary Badham, who was selected for the part of Scout. She was feisty and frank, a good match for her character. When a reporter commented, “You're a very little girl for your age,” she replied, “You'd be little, too, if you drank as much coffee as I do.”
18

Director Robert Mulligan encouraged Phillip Alford, Mary Badham, and John Megna to play together. Then he would move the cameras in quietly and tell them to begin saying their lines. (PhotoFest)

By coincidence, Phillip and Mary were Birmingham natives who lived four blocks apart. The Alfords were, however, working-class people, and the Badhams could afford a black nanny to help raise Mary. The part of the Finches' next-door neighbor went to nine-year-old John Megna, who had recently appeared in the Broadway hit
All the Way Home,
based on James Agee's Pulitzer prize–winning novel,
A Death in the Family.
“John looked up to me like a big brother,” Phillip later said, and the two boys formed a pact to hate Mary.
19

The directors had already arranged to shoot many of the scenes on sound stages at the Revue Studios, but that left the question about what to do for exterior scenes, since Monroeville no longer resembled a Depression-era Southern town. Alexander Golitzen, a former architect and the film's co–art director, studied sketches and photographs of Monroeville until he came up with an idea. Some of the older homes resembled the clapboard cottages that were disappearing from the outskirts of Los Angeles. Golitzen suggested to his colleague Henry Bumstead that they get tips from wrecking companies on houses slated for demolition. Near Chavez Ravine, where a new baseball park for the Los Angeles Dodgers was nearing completion, they found a dozen condemned cottage-style houses. For practically nothing they hauled the frames to the set. Sometimes known as “shotgun hall” houses because they have a center hall, with all the rooms off to the left or right, they were popular everywhere in the United States during the first
30
years or so of the
20
th century. For a quarter of the cost of building them from scratch on the set, the relocated houses were placed on either side of a recreated Alabama street, with porches, shutters, and gliders (seat swings) added for a touch of Southern flair.
20
When Nelle arrived on the set in early February, she was dazzled by the illusion.

On February
12
, principal photography began. Until now, Nelle had been harboring some doubts about Mr. Peck's suitability for the role. “The first time I met him was at my home in Alabama.… I'd never seen Mr. Peck, except in films, and when I saw him at my home I wondered if he'd be quite right for the part.” But that was without seeing him in character. “[T]he first glimpse I had of him was when he came out of his dressing room in his Atticus suit. It was the most amazing transformation I had ever seen. A middle-aged man came out. He looked bigger, he looked thicker through the middle. He didn't have an ounce of makeup, just a
1933
-type suit with a collar and a vest and a watch and chain. The minute I saw him I knew everything was going to be all right because he
was
Atticus.”
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