Alma Thorpe, subject of award-winning film, dies at 63

<p>Alma Thorpe, whose troubles with mental illness, sexual abuse and dark family secrets were captured in an award-winning film bearing her name, has died. She was 63.</p><p>She died Tuesday at Hospice Atlanta of complications from diabetes.</p><p>Thorpe was the subject of the 1998 independent film "Alma." The film was awarded "Best Documentary Feature" at the Hamptons International Film Festival in 1998.</p><p>"Nobody ever really listened to Alma before, and she had a lot of things to say," producer-director Ruth Leitman told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a 1998 interview.</p><p>Her daughter, Margie, co-produced the film and said her relationship with her mother was enhanced by making the movie.</p><p>"I think she saw herself as somewhat of a celebrity, someone worth making a movie about, and it was her pleasure to let her daughter do this," she said. "I'm not sure I would have had the same rapport with her had I never embarked on the film."</p><p>Alma Thorpe grew up poor in Anniston, Ala., and she moved in 1962 to Atlanta with her husband and daughter.</p><p>She was diagnosed as clinically schizophrenic and was given electroshock treatment after she was involuntarily committed in 1965 to Milledgeville's Central State Hospital.</p><p>Her family suffered generations of incest and Alma Thorpe was sometimes violent, which was captured in the film. Alma Thorpe spent most of her life in her home playing the piano and writing and receiving hundreds of letters.</p><p>"Mom always saw the good and bad as just part of the balance of everyone and everything in life, and I don't think she saw the film as much different," Margie Thorpe said.</p><p>Survivors include her husband, James Edward Thorpe of Atlanta; two sisters, Goldie Sue McGathy and Peggy Ann Tallaferro, both of Anniston.</p><p>A service was expected to be held Tuesday at Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x1cdbe00)</p>

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