Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

2009

Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and received her Bachelor’s Degree from Hollins College, now Hollins University in 1960. She worked briefly in journalism and publishing before writing for film and television, most notably as a creative consultant for the popular television series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

Her first novel A Woman of Independent Means was inspired by the life of her grandmother. Along with her husband, playwright Oliver Hailey,  A Woman of Independent Means was adapted for the stage in 1983 as a one-person play starring Barbara Rush.The play won the Los Angeles Critics Award. In 1995, A Woman of Independent Means became a six-hour NBC miniseries starring Sally Field. Forsythe Hailey has subsequently published three more best-selling novels: Life Sentences (1982), Joanna’s Husband and David’s Wife (1986—which she also adapted for the stage as a two-person play), and Home Free in 1991.