Lee Purcell (born Lee Jeune Williams; June 15, 1947) is an American actress who worked primarily in the 1970s and 1980s.

Early life

Purcell was born Lee Jeune Williams at the

Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point or MCAS Cherry Point (*) is a United States Marine Corps airfield located in Havelock, North Carolina, United States, in the eastern part of the state. It was built in 1941, and was commissioned in 1942 an ...

(North Carolina), the elder daughter of Major Frank D. Williams Jr., a decorated Marine Corps pilot who was killed while on active duty when she was two months old. Her mother, Lee ( McKnight) Williams, remarried, to Donald Purcell, a U.S. Navy doctor assigned to the Marine Corps. Lee Purcell has a younger sister. She graduated from Paragould High School in 1965 and briefly attended

Stephens College Stephens College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Timeline of women's colleges in the United States#First and oldest, the second-oldest women's educa ...

Columbia, Missouri Columbia is a city in Missouri, United States. It was founded in 1821 as the county seat of Boone County, Missouri, Boone County and had a population of 126,254 as recorded in the 2020 United States census, making it the List of cities in Misso ...

as a dance and theatre student until she was expelled.Columbia Missourian November 26, 1972 "Success for Lee Purcell"
cdm.sos.mo.gov; accessed June 14, 2015.

Career

She moved to California in 1967 and studied acting. Purcell supported herself by working in commercials and selling clothes at a disco.Profile
Daily News (Bowling Green, KY), May 8, 1981. In 1969, Purcell was selected for her first feature film by

Steve McQueen Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of counterculture of the 1960s, 1960s counterculture, made him a top box office draw for his films of the late ...

in his company's production of '' Adam at Six A.M.'', co-starring

Michael Douglas Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the ...

. Asked to explain why he chose Purcell from nearly 500 other available actresses, McQueen said, "It wasn't easy. We kept narrowing down the field over a period of weeks until it came to giving screen tests to six of them. All of them were good, but Lee seemed to jump right out of the screen." Lee Purcell at Emmy Awards 1994

Her television work included roles as Billie Dove and

Olivia de Havilland Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland (; July 1, 1916July 26, 2020) was a British and American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her tim ...

in two biopic TV movies: '' The Amazing Howard Hughes'' (1977) and '' My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn'' (1985). She was nominated for two

Emmy Awards The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award categor ...

. In 1991, she was nominated as Outstanding Lead Actress for ''Long Road Home'' and in 1994 as Outstanding Supporting Actress for ''Secret Sins of the Father''. She was co-producer, and starred in the 1998 low-budget cable-TV movie ''Malaika'' (alternate title ''Tons of Trouble''). Purcell's film career wound down in 1983 and she has only had five motion picture credits since, the last in 2015. She has continued to do television projects.

Personal life

In December 2010 Purcell launched an interactive fashion and beauty website, BoomerBabes, geared towards

Baby Boomer Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the demographic cohort preceded by the Silent Generation and followed by Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964 during the mid-20th century baby boom that ...

women. The website gained few visitors and BoomerBabes stopped updating in 2014. Purcell is a member of the

Church of Scientology The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religiou ...

Filmography

Feature films

Television

Special projects

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Purcell, Lee 1947 births Living people 20th-century American actresses 21st-century American actresses Actresses from Arkansas Actresses from North Carolina American film actresses American Scientologists American television actresses People from Cherry Point, North Carolina People from Paragould, Arkansas Stephens College alumni