Screenwriter for ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Dies at 92

The man who adapted To Kill a Mockingbird for the big screen has died at 92.

Horton Foote was working on a production for one of his plays when he died, the Chicago Tribune reports. His screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird won an Oscar. He was one of only a few writers trusted by novelist Harper Lee, the story says.

Lee was a lifelong friend of Foote’s, according to the New York Times. She once said the courtly white-haired Southerner “looked like God, only cleanshaven.”

Foote also wrote the play and screenplay The Trip to Bountiful and the screenplay for Tender Mercies. The Times calls Foote “one of the country’s foremost storytellers.”