Joanna Lee (April 7, 1931 – October 24, 2003) was an American writer, producer, director and actress.

Career

The

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, most populous City (New Jersey), city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, the county seat of Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, and a principal city of the New York metropolitan area. ...

-born actress's career was only in small roles, 10 in all, including seven TV series and three feature films, all between 1956 and 1961. The latter included an uncredited appearance in a lesser-known

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Honorific nicknames in popular music, Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the Time 100: The Most I ...

film, ''

The Joker Is Wild ''The Joker Is Wild'' is a 1957 American musical drama film directed by Charles Vidor, starring Frank Sinatra, Mitzi Gaynor, Jeanne Crain and Eddie Albert, and released by Paramount Pictures. The VistaVision film is about Joe E. Lewis, the p ...

'' (1957), plus two low-budget

science fiction films Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, mutants, i ...

. Those two were '' The Brain Eaters'' (1958) and a film that in later years would come to be regarded as the quintessential 'so-bad-it's-good' cult classic, ''

Plan 9 from Outer Space ''Plan 9 from Outer Space'' is a 1957 American Independent film, independent science fiction film, science fiction-horror film produced, written, directed, and edited by Ed Wood. The film was shot in black-and-white in November 1956 and had ...

'' (1959), in which Lee portrays "Tanna" the space girl. A serious car accident in 1961 necessitated a career change. By 1962, Lee had landed writing assignments for ''

My Three Sons ''My Three Sons'' is an American television sitcom that aired from September 29, 1960, to April 13, 1972. The series was filmed in black-and-white and broadcast on ABC during its first five seasons, before moving to CBS for the remaining seve ...

'' and ''

The Flintstones ''The Flintstones'' is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera, Hanna-Barbera Productions, which takes place in a romanticized Stone Age setting and follows the titular family, the Flintstones, and their next-door neighbors, the R ...

''. She wrote more than 20 episodes of ''The Flintstones'' and is widely credited with creating The Great Gazoo. She wrote an episode of ''

Gilligan's Island ''Gilligan's Island'' is an American sitcom created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz. The show's ensemble cast features Bob Denver, Alan Hale Jr., Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer, Tina Louise, Russell Johnson, and Dawn Wells. It aired for th ...

'' (1964–67), entitled " Beauty Is as Beauty Does", which aired on September 23, 1965. Lee also wrote two episodes for the final season of the series, each of which based the plot line on one of the castaways meeting their double. Also in this period (September 1962) she appeared as a contestant on the CBS television program ''

What's My Line ''What's My Line?'' is a panel game show that originally ran in the United States, between 1950 and 1967, on CBS, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent American revivals. The game uses celebrity panelists to questi ...

'', describing her work at that point as being a TV comedy writer. In her June 11, 1959 appearance on ''

You Bet Your Life ''You Bet Your Life'' is an American comedy quiz series that has aired on both radioEmmy Award 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 ...

for Best Writing in Drama, for a 1972 Thanksgiving episode of ''

The Waltons ''The Waltons'' is an American historical drama television series about a family in rural mountainous Western Virginia of the Appalachian Mountains / Allegheny Mountains / Blue Ridge Mountains chain, during the economic hardships and mass unemp ...

''. The same year, she formed her own production company, which, in 1975, produced the documentary ''Babe'' (also written by Lee), about athlete

Babe Zaharias Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (; Didrikson; June 26, 1911 – September 27, 1956) was an American athlete who excelled in golf, basketball, baseball, and track and field. She won two gold medals and a silver in track and field at the ...

's career. The film was nominated for an Emmy for "Outstanding Writing in a Special Program - Drama or Comedy - Original Teleplay," and won the

Golden Globe The Golden Globe Awards are awards presented for excellence in both international film and television. It is an annual award ceremony held since 1944 to honor artists and professionals and their work. The ceremony is normally held every Januar ...

for "Best Motion Picture Made for Television." She wrote the novel and teleplay '' Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night''. In 1988, she won the

Humanitas Prize The Humanitas Prize is an American award for film and television writing, presented to writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced and meaningful manner. It began in 1974 with Father Ellwood "Bud" Kieser—also the founder of ...

for ''The Kid Who Wouldn't Quit: The Brad Silverman Story''.

Personal life

Her son, Craig Lee, then a music director at '' L. A. Weekly'', died of AIDS in 1992. Another son, Christopher Ciampa, appeared in several of her films.Christopher Ciampa
Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2012-12-12. Her autobiography, ''A Difficult Woman in Hollywood'', was published in 1999. Lee died from bone cancer on October 24, 2003, in

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast (California), South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 United Sta ...

, at the age of 72.

References

External links

Appearance On What's My Line 9/9/62 at 10:10 on show
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Joanna Lee scripts
at th
American Heritage Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Joanna 1931 births 2003 deaths American television writers American television producers American women television producers Primetime Emmy Award winners Writers from Newark, New Jersey Deaths from bone cancer in California 20th-century American actresses Burials at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery Actresses from Newark, New Jersey Screenwriters from New Jersey American women television writers 20th-century American screenwriters 21st-century American women