Harper Lee

'Hey Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'" MPAA rating: Unrated Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes Playing: At Laemmle's Music Hall, Beverly Hills <

They were Southern women who wrote novels about race, family and the destructive mores of their native land — so it makes sense that the "American Masters" documentaries about Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee would run back to back Monday night. It also makes sense that neither of these films would break the two-hour mark — "Margaret Mitchell: An American Rebel" is 55 minutes, "Harper Lee: Hey, Boo" is 90 minutes — because these women shared another characteristic: Each wrote just one book.

In her last in-depth interview about writing, Harper Lee talked about her hometown, Monroeville, Ala., in 1964, telling Roy Newquist: We simply entertained each other by talking. It's quite a thing, if you've never been in or known a small Southern town. The people are not particularly sophisticated, naturally. They're not worldly wise in any way. But they tell you a story whenever they see you. We're oral types — we talk. Sunday is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird," and Monroeville is still a place rich with stories and storytellers.

'Hey Boo: Harper Lee and 'To Kill a Mockingbird'" MPAA rating: Unrated Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes Playing: At Laemmle's Music Hall, Beverly Hills <

Harper Lee, author of the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," has written a rare published item -- a letter for Oprah Winfrey's magazine on how she became a reader as a child in a rural Alabama town. The 80-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner quit giving interviews about 40 years ago and, other than a 1983 review of an Alabama history book, has published nothing of significance in some four decades. That makes her article for O, the Oprah Magazine, something of a literary coup.

They were Southern women who wrote novels about race, family and the destructive mores of their native land — so it makes sense that the "American Masters" documentaries about Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee would run back to back Monday night. It also makes sense that neither of these films would break the two-hour mark — "Margaret Mitchell: An American Rebel" is 55 minutes, "Harper Lee: Hey, Boo" is 90 minutes — because these women shared another characteristic: Each wrote just one book.

HARPER LEE is the Greta Garbo of novelists. Since her last interview in March 1964, the 79-year-old author has been sighted mostly at the First Methodist Church in her hometown of Monroeville, Ala., or perhaps on East 82nd Street in Manhattan, where she lives for part of the year. Her only novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird," however, needs no publicist or writer to keep it alive.

In the old days, when armies of college grads would troop off to write the Great American Novel -- before everyone switched to screenplays -- there was something they didn't know: It had already been written. "To Kill a Mockingbird," published in 1960, won the Pulitzer Prize, and the huzzahs just kept coming.

Harper Lee was working as an airline reservations agent in New York City, struggling to write a novel tentatively titled "Atticus," when a close friend gave her enough money to take time off and finish her book. Published in 1960 with an initial print run of just 5,000 copies, "To Kill a Mockingbird" became an instant phenomenon: a critically acclaimed bestseller and Pulitzer Prize winner, followed by a multiple-Oscar-winning 1962 film featuring the iconic performance of Gregory Peck as courageous Southern lawyer Atticus Finch.

Scout, Atticus and Boo A Celebration of Fifty Years of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' Mary McDonagh Murphy Harper: 240 pp., $24.99 What is it about "To Kill a Mockingbird"? Harper Lee's 1960 debut has sold 30 million copies, more than any other 20th century novel, and it continues to sell 1 million more each year. Yet despite having won the Pulitzer Prize and having assumed a place as one of our essential national books of fiction, it remains its author's only published novel.

Harper Lee was working as an airline reservations agent in New York City, struggling to write a novel tentatively titled "Atticus," when a close friend gave her enough money to take time off and finish her book. Published in 1960 with an initial print run of just 5,000 copies, "To Kill a Mockingbird" became an instant phenomenon: a critically acclaimed bestseller and Pulitzer Prize winner, followed by a multiple-Oscar-winning 1962 film featuring the iconic performance of Gregory Peck as courageous Southern lawyer Atticus Finch.

In her last in-depth interview about writing, Harper Lee talked about her hometown, Monroeville, Ala., in 1964, telling Roy Newquist: We simply entertained each other by talking. It's quite a thing, if you've never been in or known a small Southern town. The people are not particularly sophisticated, naturally. They're not worldly wise in any way. But they tell you a story whenever they see you. We're oral types — we talk. Sunday is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird," and Monroeville is still a place rich with stories and storytellers.

Scout, Atticus and Boo A Celebration of Fifty Years of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' Mary McDonagh Murphy Harper: 240 pp., $24.99 What is it about "To Kill a Mockingbird"? Harper Lee's 1960 debut has sold 30 million copies, more than any other 20th century novel, and it continues to sell 1 million more each year. Yet despite having won the Pulitzer Prize and having assumed a place as one of our essential national books of fiction, it remains its author's only published novel.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Harper Lee is a woman of few words and generally avoids media interviews and public appearances. But the author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" broke her silence briefly Monday at a ceremony inducting four new members, including former home-run king Hank Aaron, into the Alabama Academy of Honor. Lee, who lives in Monroeville, is a member of the academy, which honors living Alabamians, and was in the audience.

Reclusive author Harper Lee attended a high school play based on her book, "To Kill a Mockingbird," this week, then met with students who appeared in the production. The production brought together about 60 students from nearly all-white Mountain Brook High and all-black Fairfield High Preparatory School. The 80-year-old Lee was invited as a special guest to be honored by education and arts officials.

There's an innate problem with dramatizing "To Kill a Mockingbird." After all, when you're dealing with one of the most celebrated and revered novels of the 20th century, you are confronting a veritable minefield of audience expectations.

THANKS to The Times and to Mary McNamara for the terrific article on my all-time fave-rave actress, Catherine Keener ["She's No Movie Star," Dec. 6]. To see her as a sexy, funny and emotionally honest grandmother in "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" and the very next week as a strait-laced Harper Lee in "Capote" is to understand why she is the best American actress currently working in films. NEIL FLOWERS Los Angeles

Like the character Boo Radley in her acclaimed novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," Harper Lee has emerged from her secluded life in Alabama to perform an act of charity. The New York Post reported Thursday that Lee, who never wrote another book and gave her last interview in 1964, recently granted a request to sign a first-edition copy of "Mockingbird" that is being auctioned to raise money for the medical care for the son of Bob Terry, the police chief in Cookeville, Tenn.

Harper Lee, author of the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," has written a rare published item -- a letter for Oprah Winfrey's magazine on how she became a reader as a child in a rural Alabama town. The 80-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner quit giving interviews about 40 years ago and, other than a 1983 review of an Alabama history book, has published nothing of significance in some four decades. That makes her article for O, the Oprah Magazine, something of a literary coup.