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Mary Badham, left, the actress who played Scout in the 1962 film "To Kill a Mockingbird," talks with Karen Eaton, of Flint, as Badham signs autographs and meets people Wednesday outside of the Old Town Playhouse after a showing of "Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'" Record-Eagle/Keith King

July 28, 2011

Former child star tells of 'To Kill a Mockingbird'

BY MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS mdrahos@record-eagle.com The Record Eagle Thu Jul 28, 2011, 07:14 AM EDT

TRAVERSE CITY — Mary Badham was 9 when she was hired to play Scout in the 1962 film "To Kill a Mockingbird" — too young to be aware of the civil rights movement going on around her in the South, too young to be on the studio set when the courtroom scenes were filmed.

"I don't think we even saw scripts," said the former child actress, who auditioned for the smart-but-sassy role at a "cattle call" in her native Birmingham, Ala. "We were children, and in those days there were things deemed not appropriate for children to hear."

Badham, 58, shared memories of working on the film and of her longtime friendships with many of the other actors, after a screening of the movie Wednesday night at the State Theatre. The showing was part of the Traverse City Film Festival's 50th anniversary celebration of the movie, one of the top draws at this year's festival.

"We could have sold six screenings of this," said Film Festival Executive Director Deb Lake. "It was one of the most hoped-for tickets on almost everybody's list. As soon as we announced it, we had people calling and saying, 'I named my daughter (or son) after Harper Lee.' This is just a film that has changed so many lives."

The depression-era movie based on a 1960 novel by Lee won three Academy Awards and is considered by many to be one of the greatest courtroom dramas. It stars Gregory Peck as a small-town southern lawyer defending a black man unjustly accused of raping a white woman.

Badham retired at 14 after making three more movies. But she and Peck maintained a friendship until the actor's death in 2003.

New Yorkers James Faller and Jane Cinsov waited in a standby line about 40 deep to try and snag seats for Wednesday's screening. Faller, who is at the festival to provide film and video inspection services with New York City-based Hill Top Productions, hoped to see the film on a big screen for the first time. For Cinsov it would be the first time to see it on any screen.

"Growing up I loved the book," Cinsov said. "I don't know how (the movie) eluded me. We were waiting for a retrospective to hit New York, but this seemed like the perfect opportunity."

Badham also appears in the Film Festival documentary "Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird,'" which traces the history of the novel and its enigmatic author. The actress autographed books and publicity photos from "Mockingbird" after the documentary's screening Wednesday morning.

Wendy Eager brought a publicity photo she bought on eBay for Badham to sign.

"It's only my favorite movie," said Eager, of Chicago, who has seen the film about a half-dozen times. "It's one of the best adaptations of a book."

Eager said she recalls reading the novel and acting out scenes from it in the eighth grade. But it and the movie are as relevant now as they were back then.

"You think about this book today, and you could substitute a Muslim for a black person, and we're right back where we were," she said.

Joan Murray saw the documentary to learn more about Lee, a 34-year-old former airline reservationist who had written only five stories before her Pulitzer Prize-winning book was published.

"I thought it was fascinating that she never wrote a book after that," said Murray, of Traverse City.

The private Lee gave her last interview in 1964.