RELATED: The 20 Oldest Living Celebrities in 2021. Just nine years old when she was cast, Badham says she had never acted a day in her life before auditioning for To Kill A Mockingbird. In fact, her father was against her auditioning at all, and it was only thanks to her mother’s persuasion that she was given the opportunity. “My mom had to ask my dad, who said no. She said, ‘Now, Henry, what are the chances that the child will get the part anyway?’” she recalled in a 2015 essay she wrote for The Guardian.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb Immediately after her audition, Badham says she felt connected to the character. “When we went in for the audition, they gave us the script, and I read it and loved it. My mom said that the next morning I was popping out with lines already—Scout’s lines. She knew I had something,” she recalled. The rest, as they say, is history. Badham shared that despite—or perhaps thanks to—her inexperience, making the film “was a blast,” adding that “being on the set was playtime.” She also recalled learning a lot from the film’s director. “Bob Mulligan was one of the best directors ever,” wrote Badham. “He would squat down and get eye to eye and talk to me like an adult. I don’t ever remember him talking to us like children. He would just set up the scene for us: ‘The camera’s gonna be here, you’re gonna be here. We’re gonna move this way. And then you do your line.’ How I delivered the lines was left to me. I could do them on the fly. I think it shows.” RELATED: See Nellie From “Little House on the Prairie” Now at 59. Badham says it surprises people to learn that it wasn’t until adulthood that she finally read the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. “I didn’t read the book until after I had my daughter,” she recalled in her piece for The Guardian, adding, “How many times have you seen a film and read the book, and it alters your impression? I had my whole life up there on screen, and I was perfectly happy with the way it was.” Perhaps because of her age at the time, she says it also took years for the the story’s message to fully sink in—yet once it did, she found it transformative. “I didn’t understand the importance of the film until much, much later,” she wrote. Today, she says the story is still relevant, and just as urgent. “The messages are so clear and so simple. It’s about a way of life, getting along, and learning tolerance. This is not a black-and-white 1930s issue, this is a global issue. Racism and bigotry haven’t gone anywhere. Ignorance hasn’t gone anywhere,” she wrote. Badham says her friendship with the movie star Gregory Peck continued long after the film wrapped. She told the magazine Southern Living that after just five months of filming, their relationship became truly familial: she would spend weekends at his home and thought of his children as her “siblings.” Until he died, she continued to call the A-list actor “Atticus.” “Well what else was I gonna call him? Greg was not happening, and Mr. Peck was too formal. We were too close for that,” she said, affectionately. In The Guardian, she shared that Peck became even more of a father figure after her own parents passed away. “He was so wonderful. I miss him a lot. Years later, the phone would ring, and he’d be on the other end of the line. ‘What ya doing, kiddo?’ He’d check on me just to see how I was doing, because I lost my parents very early,” Badham shared. “Atticus would call and check on me. If he was gonna be on the east coast, he’d say, ‘I’ll take you out to lunch.’ And whenever I was in California, I’d always go visit. He was such a role model, and I always wanted him to be proud of me,” she wrote. For more entertainment news sent directly to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. In total, Badham has just seven Hollywood credits to her name, including To Kill a Mockingbird. During the ’60s, she appeared in one episode of Dr. Kildaire, one episode of The Twilight Zone, and two films: This Property Is Condemned (1966) and Let’s Kill Uncle (1966). She then took a long hiatus from acting at the age of 14, not returning to the silver screen again until 2005 to make the movie Our Very Own, starring Allison Janney, Keith Carradine, and Cheryl Hines. Most recently, in 2019, she appeared in the made-for-TV horror film Erasing His Past. Instead of chasing the next Hollywood project, Badham moved back to Virginia to become an art restorer. “The now-retired actor spends her days traveling across the country to speak to schools, groups, and at special events about the importance of the message behind the beloved film—and to visit her grandbabies,” reports Southern Living. RELATED: Erin Murphy Played Tabitha on “Bewitched” See Her Now at 57.
