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That could change with the release of Zora, the St. Lucie Film Society's documentary on her life, from her childhood in Eatonville to her death at a Fort Pierce nursing home.

The two-hour movie tells her story through actresses portraying Hurston, old photographs and interviews with friends and scholars.

"It's not just her accomplishments, but how she went about it," the audience is told at the start of the movie.

Viewers need not have read Hurston's books to be captivated by the story of a young girl who leaves Eatonville, struggles to get an education, is hailed as one of America's greatest authors, attempts suicide after she's falsely accused of molesting a child and spends her last years in Fort Pierce among people who know little or nothing of her accomplishments.

She was so unappreciated that she was fired from teaching English at Lincoln Park Academy, because officials couldn't get a piece of paper proving she had a college degree.

Retired sheriff's deputy Patrick Duval tells of rescuing some of Hurston's manuscripts from a fire that people set while cleaning out the late Hurston's house. Those papers ended up at the University of Florida's archives.

Others tell of what some considered outrageous conduct, such as a black woman smoking in the presence of white people and wearing a plumed hat in her classroom at Lincoln Park Academy.

"There was a lot of history in there," said Steve Knapp, an English professor at Indian River Community College. "I loved it."

Cast and crew members invited guests to Club Med for Zora's first viewing by a wider audience before the official debut in February at the Sunrise Theatre in Fort Pierce.

The movie starts with a circle of men playing checkers and telling tales on the porch of an Eatonville store.

Hurston sits just outside the circle, unnoticed by the men, listening intently as they tell the story of who hit whom with an ax handle.

Tales like that are recounted in some of Hurston's numerous books.

She gathered other folklore on her travels through the South and the Caribbean. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston's best-known work, includes an account of the 1928 hurricane that devastated western Palm Beach County.

Oprah Winfrey turned that book into a television movie starring Halle Berry.

Fort Pierce is featured most prominently in a reenactment of her funeral, paid for with donations from local residents.

She was buried in an unmarked grave in a local cemetery and remained there in obscurity until the 1970s, when author Alice Walker located the grave and sparked a revival of interest in Hurston's works.

Hurston's works are celebrated each year at ZoraFest, which features scholars who discuss her life and books, along with games and other activities for children.

Knapp and other IRCC officials are in the talking stages of creating a Zora Neale Hurston Center for the Arts and Humanities, with a museum of memorabilia.

"We'll have to see what the community is interested in and would support," Knapp said.