Barbara Turner

Barbara Turner was an American actress and screenwriter who wrote over a dozen highly acclaimed TV movies and films over the course of her fifty-plus year career in Hollywood. Born in Brooklyn at the height of the Great Depression, Turner's love of movies was eminent at a very young age. By the time she was in her early teens she knew she wanted to make her living as screen actress. After a brief stint studying acting at the University of Austin, Texas, Turner moved back to her native New York where she honed her craft under the legendary teacher Paul Mann. It was while studying in New York that Turner met fellow actor and future husband Vic Morrow. Throughout the late 1950s and early '60s, Turner appeared in several television shows and movies, including "Two-Gun Lady" (1955), episodes of "Playhouse 90" (CBS, 1956-1960), and "Nightmare in Chicago" (1965). By the late mid-1960s, however, Turner primarily turned her attention to screenwriting. Her first credited screenwriting role was "Deathwatch" (1966). The film was directed by her then-husband Vic Morrow, and starred Leonard Nimoy, before he would go on to greater acclaim as Mr. Spock on "Star Trek" (NBC, 1966-69). Turner continued to write screenplays for films and TV shows throughout the '70s and '80s in relative obscurity, but by the 1990s her films and TV shows started earning wide acclaim. In 1995 she wrote the screenplay for the critically lauded music drama "Georgia," which also starred her daughter Jennifer Jason Leigh. That film went on to earn an Oscar nod for Mare Winningham. Turner followed that film up by writing the screenplay for the biopic "Pollock" (2000) about the acclaimed painter Jackson Pollock. That film went on to earn Marcia Gay Harden an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Turner continued writing screenplays throughout the 2000s and 2010s with continued success, having notably earned an Emmy for co-scripting, along with Jerry Stahl, the 2012 HBO film "Hemmingway & Gellhorn." That film, however, would prove to be her final credited film. Turner died in Los Angeles on April 5, 2016 at the age of 79.