- Born
- Died
- Birth nameNelle Harper Lee
- Height5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
- Nelle Harper Lee grew up in Monroeville, Alabama in the 1920s. It was a time of hostility between whites and blacks in the United States, especially in Alabama. Her father, a lawyer, also ran a local newspaper. Her mother suffered from mental illness and oftentimes stayed inside from others; she was thought to suffer from bipolar disorder. Harper was a young lady with an agile personality. She was tomboyish, and eventually befriended Truman Persons. Truman would also turn out to become a writer later on in life, as Truman Capote, and they would later on collaborate in a newspaper called The New Yorker. Harper would often serve as Truman's protector in elementary school, as she was a tougher girl who did not fear other boys. Lee developed a passion for literature in high school. After graduating in 1944, she went on to join Huntingdon College-an all-female academy located in Montgomery. Throughout her college years, she was distant from other students. Rather than working on her makeup and getting dates, she was focused on her studies, constantly reading and writing.
Lee moved to New York in the 1950s, took a job as an airline reservations clerk, and wrote her first novel during that time. "To Kill a Mockingbird," published in 1960, won a Pulitzer Prize, and is still admired, widely-taught, and beloved. The film version, To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), received several Academy Awards. Lee insisted that the novel is a work of fiction, not autobiography. She protected her privacy, spoke through her literary agent, McIntosh and Otis, did not appear on television and did not give interviews. She lived in Monroeville, Alabama and New York. She died in Monroeville on February 19, 2016.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Eileen Berdon and Tyler J.R.
- Made a rare appearance at the insistence of her friend Veronique Peck, widow of Gregory Peck. She was honored by the Los Angeles Public Library at a benefit dinner to raise funds for computers and literacy programs. The award was presented by Brock Peters, who portrayed the black man falsely accused of rape in the film To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).
- Was Truman Capote's personal assistant when he went to Garden City, Kansas, to investigate the Clutter murders in Holcomb, Kansas - which became his bestselling book, "In Cold Blood," and at least two films: In Cold Blood (1967) and In Cold Blood (1996). Lee and Capote were childhood friends.
- Her book, "To Kill a Mockingbird," was banned from advanced placement English courses in Lindale, Texas, in 1996, because it "conflicted with the values of the community".
- Her second published novel, "Go Set A Watchman," was actually the first one she wrote. In it, Scout and Jem, the main characters from her first published novel, "To Kill A Mockingbird," are already adults. When she first presented it to her agent, he told her the characters were interesting, but the story was not. She was instructed to write about the characters when they were younger. The result was her first published novel, "To Kill A Mockingbird," which was made into the film To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). The discovery of the manuscript for "Go Set A Watchman" in late 2014, resulted in investigations by the State of Alabama, into whether she was mentally competent to consent to it being published. Despite suffering from a stroke and macular degeneration, she repeatedly said yes.
- (March 2008 - 2014) She lived with her sister and attorney, Alice Finch Lee, in Monroeville, Alabama, until Alice Lee's death in 2014 at age 103.
- Many receive advice. Only the wise profit from it.
- They're Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn't dream of interrupting you at golf.
- Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through, no matter what.
- Before I can live with other folks, I've got to live with myself.The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
- [on 'To Kill a Mockingbird'] It is and it isn't autobiographical. The trial, and the rape case charge that brings on the trial, are made out of a composite of such cases and charges. What I did present as exactly as I could was the clime and tone, as I remembered them, of the town in which I lived. From childhood on, I did sit in the courtroom watching my father argue cases and talk to juries.
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