Portland girl subject of book’s cover art ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ recently reissued

PORTLAND – A picture of a 10-year-old Portland girl is gracing the cover of a new paperback reissue of Harper Lee’s classic novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Audrey Seiz, a fifth-grader at Breakwater School, was chosen as the model by Freeport photographer Jack Montgomery, who shot the cover portrait.

Montgomery had photographed Audrey at a dance workshop a year earlier and was struck by her resemblance to Mary Badham, the actress who at age 9 played the novel’s young narrator in the black-and-white film version.

Montgomery later got a call from a publisher’s representative who asked if he might be interested in doing portraits for book covers. By pure coincidence, “To Kill a Mockingbird” was the first one assigned to him.

“You’re not going to believe this,” said Montgomery, who had recently seen the movie, “but have I got the girl for you.”

Audrey likes to fish and swim and play basketball and tennis, but what she likes best is to dance. She has appeared professionally with Ram Island Dance.

“She’s a superb dancer,” said Betsy Dunphy, Audrey’s first dance instructor. “And she’s nice.”

It was because of his friendship with Dunphy that Montgomery was at the workshop where he photographed Audrey and other dancers.

A Portland lawyer, Montgomery has drawn critical acclaim for his photographs. His portraits of New York City firefighters were on exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art.

After he got the book assignment, Montgomery got together with Audrey at the Ram Island Dance studio. He seated her in a worn wooden chair from his kitchen and pulled an old piano behind her for background.

Montgomery shot Audrey in bib overalls – as Badham wears in the film – and in a red-and-white checkerboard dress she borrowed from a friend. Montgomery selected, and editors at HarperCollins approved, a head-and-shoulder shot of Audrey in overalls.

The author, 75-year-old Harper Lee (who never published another book after her debut novel won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961) rejected it.

“Harper Lee did not like the picture,” Montgomery said, “because little girls did not wear bib overalls in Georgia in the 1930s.”

So they went with the dress.

Montgomery finally learned last month that his portrait of Audrey would be on 100,000 paperback copies that began reaching bookstores March 5.

Neither photographer nor model will receive royalties, but Montgomery shared his fee with Audrey. “It’s her go-to-dance-school money,” he said.

More than 30 million copies of “To Kill a Mockingbird” have been printed, with translations in more than 40 languages.

“For the next 10 years,” Montgomery marveled, “every seventh- grader in America will be looking at her picture.”