Joanna Lee (actor)

Joanna Lee
Born	Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Occupation	Television director, screenwriter, actress and producer
Years active	1956-1990

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

Lee was born in Newark, New Jersey; by the time she was 20, she was a divorced single mother with a son, Craig Lee.

As an actress, Lee'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 vehicle, The Joker Is Wild (1957), plus two low-budget science fiction films. 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 (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 and The Flintstones. She wrote an episode of Gilligan's Island (1964–67), entitled "Beauty Is As Beauty Does", which aired on September 23, 1965. Also in this period (September 1962) she appeared as a contestant on the popular CBS television program What's My Line, describing her work at that point as being a TV comedy writer.

In 1973 she won an Emmy Award for Best Writing in Drama, for a 1972 Thanksgiving episode of The Waltons. The same year, she formed her own production company, which, in 1975, produced the documentary Babe (also written by Lee), about athlete Babe Zaharias'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 for "Best Motion Picture Made for Television."

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