Names and faces

■ A batch of letters handwritten by To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee to a friend has sold for more than $12,000. A statement from the Los Angeles-based Nate D. Sanders Auctions says 38 letters from the novelist, who died in 2016, to her late friend Felice Itzkoff went for $12,500 in a sale that ended Thursday night. The letters track years of correspondence between Lee and Itzkoff, a New York resident whom the author referred to as “Clipper,” short for “Yankee Clipper.” Itzkoff died in 2011. The minimum bid was $10,000. The letters span the period from December 2005 and May 2010, and include a note written on Jan. 20, 2009, the day Barack Obama was inaugurated as the nation’s first black president. In the note, Lee referred to former President Lyndon B. Johnson and actor Gregory Peck, who portrayed small-town attorney Atticus Finch in the screen adaptation of Mockingbird, a story of racial injustice in the Jim Crow South.

■ Actress and political activist Jane Fonda will celebrate her 80th birthday by raising funds for her foundation. “Eight Decades of Jane” will be held Dec. 9 at an upscale hotel in Atlanta. The event will recognize Fonda’s life achievements along with her foundation, the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential. The foundation is hosting the event. Singer-songwriters James Taylor and Carole King are scheduled to perform. Guests expected to attend include CNN founder Ted Turner; producer Paula Weinstein; and actors Sally Field, Rosie O’Donnell, Diane Lane and Troy Garity, who is Fonda’s son. Each of the eight courses on the menu will represent a decade of Fonda’s life. Fonda created the foundation in 1995.

■ Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was recognized in Boston on Friday by the nonprofit GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders for his efforts advancing gay and transgender rights. The group presented Holder with its 18th annual Spirit of Justice award. Organizers said Holder, attorney general from 2009-15, was selected “for his visionary leadership to advance civil rights and LGBTQ justice.” The group also said the award recognizes Holder for his work on voting rights, criminal justice reform and examining racial bias in policing. Executive Director Janson Wu said Holder has made the country “a better, more just place.”

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