Mary Badham has led a full life outside Hollywood, but never really left Maycomb

The year 1962 was a good one for Alabama kids in the movies. Birmingham's Mary Badham and Gadsden's Phillip Alford played Scout and Jem in "To Kill a Mockingbird," set in the fictional town of Maycomb and based on the beloved novel by Monroeville's Nelle Harper Lee, based loosely on her own childhood.

Assaying her first acting role at age 10, Badham became the youngest actor nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar, but lost to Patty Duke, who had played a real-life young Alabamian, Helen Keller, in "The Miracle Worker." Just 16, Duke became the then-youngest Oscar winner.

Tatum O'Neal broke both their records, becoming the youngest nominated and youngest winner, just 9 while filming the 1974 "Paper Moon," 10 at the Oscar ceremony. The novel "Paper Moon" was based on, Birmingham native Joe David Brown's "Addie Pray," took place largely in Alabama, though Peter Bogdanovich moved his film to the Midwest.

More: Lee's novel considered a timeless inspiration

Badham worked a few more years in TV, appearing on episodes of "The Twilight Zone" (she played Sport Sharewood in "The Bewitchin' Pool"), and "Dr. Kildare." In film, she worked in a William Castle thriller called "Let's Kill Uncle," and in star-studded "This Property is Condemned," directed by Sydney Pollack, with a script partly written by Francis Ford Coppola, based on a Tennessee Williams play, and starring Robert Redford, Natalie Wood, and Charles Bronson.

She essentially retired from acting as a teen-ager, moved away, married educator Richard W. Wilt, raised a son and daughter, but stayed in close contact with Gregory Peck (until his death in 2003) and Brock Peters (until his death in 2005).

In "To Kill A Mockingbird," Peters played the accused Tom Robinson, and Peck won the best acting Oscar for Atticus Finch. She continued to call Peck "Atticus."

"What you see up on the screen is what you got at home," Badham said, sharing that she spent many weekends bonding with him, and his family.

"It was noting for me to pick up the phone, and hear him say 'How you doing, kiddo?' I lost my parents very early in my life, and the Pecks really stepped up to the plate."

Badham has written that she had three paternal influences, three daddies: Her own, Peters and Atticus Peck.

"We were like family. (The Pecks) were such a beautiful family, and a real family to me. It was very helpful for me growing," she said.

Badham worked as an art restorer and college testing coordinator, and has taken only sporadic acting roles by request, in the 2005 "Our Very Own," with Allison Janney, Keith Carradine and Beth Grant, and 2019's "Erasing His Past." Sixty years after the movie, she took her first stage role, playing Mrs. Dubose in the touring company of Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

In addition to close connections with co-stars, Badham has traveled and spoken frequently about "To Kill a Mockingbird," especially its lessons about the need for greater tolerance and fairness, including a stop in Tuscaloosa in 2001 for the Alabama Stage and Screen Hall of Fame, which inducted the movie, along with Broadway star Rebecca Luker and writer Truman Capote (who inspired the character Dill in Lee's novel).

A year earlier, she had accepted on behalf of her brother John, who's enjoyed a longer Hollywood career as a director, helming "Saturday Night Fever," "WarGames," "Blue Thunder," "Short Circuit," the Frank Langella "Dracula," and "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings." He works mostly in TV now, directing for series including "Supernatural," "Arrow," "12 Monkeys," "Nikita," "Heroes" and more.

Badham has promoted the book and film’s message about social injustice across the U.S., including for the National Endowment of the Arts, and two White House appearances, and received a U.S. Speaker and Specialist Grant to participate in programs about "To Kill a Mockingbird" in Russia.

Reach Mark Hughes Cobb at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Birmingham's Mary Badham has led a full life outside of Hollywood