Joan Tewkesbury

American actress

Joan Tewkesbury

Born|  (1936-04-08) April 8, 1936 (age 89)

Redlands, California, United States

Occupation(s)| Film and television actress, director, and screenwriter

Joan Tewkesbury (born April 8, 1936) is an American film and television director, writer, producer, choreographer and actress. She had a long association with the celebrated director Robert Altman, writing the screenplays for Thieves Like Us (1974), and Nashville (1975), widely regarded as "Altman's masterpiece", and which earned her a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay.[1]

## Early life

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Tewkesbury was born in Redlands, California, the daughter of Frances M. (née Stevenson), a registered nurse, and Walter S. Tewkesbury, an office machine repairman.[citation needed] She began her career at age ten as a dancer in The Unfinished Dance with Margaret O'Brien and Cyd Charisse. One of her early television acting roles was in a guest appearance on the short-lived NBC drama It's a Man's World.

## Career

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Tewkesbury collaborated with Altman on several of his films, including McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971, as a script supervisor) and Thieves Like Us (1974, her first credit as a feature writer). She then wrote Nashville, which she had proposed to Altman prior to his filming of McCabe & Mrs. Miller; he became interested in the setting and sent Tewkesbury to Nashville in the fall of 1973 to observe the area and its citizenry.[2] Tewkesbury's diary of her trip provided the basis for the screenplay, with many observations making it into the finished film, such as the highway pileup.[3] Tewkesbury wrote and directed numerous hours of episodic television, including for Disney, HBO, CBS, TNT, and NBC. She has also directed off-Broadway, co-choreographed and directed for the Oregon Ballet Theatre and performed, written and directed for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Her play, The Retrospective, was presented at the Manhattan Theatre Source.

In 2011, Tewkesbury published her first novel, Ebba and the Green Dresses of Olivia Gomez in a Time of Conflict and War.[4]

She has also taught screenwriting, at the University of Southern California, with her workshop “Designed Obstacles, Spontaneous Response” travelling throughout the United States, Israel, and Japan.[5] Since 2003, Tewkesbury has lived in Tesuque, New Mexico.

## Filmography as director

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* Old Boyfriends (1979)
* The Tenth Month (1979) (TV)
* The Acorn People (1981) (TV)
* Cold Sassy Tree (1989) (TV)
* Scattering Dad (1998) (TV)

### Series

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* Elysian Fields (1989) (TV)
* Strangers (1992) (TV)
* Felicity (TV series)
* The Guardian (2001) (TV series)

## References

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1. ^ Stuart, Jan (2000). The Nashville Chronicles: The Making of Robert Altman's Masterpiece. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-86543-0.
2. ^ Stuart 2000, pp. 15–20.
3. ^ Stuart 2000, p. 163.
4. ^ Tewkesbury, Joan (October 17, 2011). Ebba and the Green Dresses of Olivia Gomez in a Time of Conflict and War. Hand to Hand. ISBN 978-0972071888.
5. ^ "Joan Tewkesbury - Sundance Co//Ab".

## External links

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* Biography portal
* California portal
* Los Angeles portal
* Film portal
* Television portal

* Joan Tewkesbury at IMDb

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Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Screenplay

1975–2000|

* Joan Tewkesbury (1975)
* Paddy Chayefsky (1976)
* Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman (1977)
* Paul Mazursky (1978)
* Robert Benton (1979)
* John Sayles (1980)
* John Guare (1981)
* Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal (1982)
* James L. Brooks (1983)
* Peter Shaffer (1984)
* Terry Gilliam, Charles McKeown and Tom Stoppard (1985)
* Woody Allen (1986)
* John Boorman (1987)
* Ron Shelton (1988)
* Gus Van Sant and Daniel Yost (1989)
* Nicholas Kazan (1990)
* James Toback (1991)
* David Webb Peoples (1992)
* Jane Campion (1993)
* Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary (1994)
* Emma Thompson (1995)
* Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (1996)
* Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland (1997)
* Warren Beatty and Jeremy Pikser (1998)
* Charlie Kaufman (1999)
* Kenneth Lonergan (2000)

2001–present|

* Christopher Nolan (2001)
* Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor (2002)
* Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (2003)
* Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor (2004)
* Noah Baumbach / Dan Futterman (2005)
* Peter Morgan (2006)
* Tamara Jenkins (2007)
* Mike Leigh (2008)
* Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner (2009)
* Aaron Sorkin (2010)
* Asghar Farhadi (2011)
* Chris Terrio (2012)
* Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (2013)
* Wes Anderson (2014)
* Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer (2015)
* Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou (2016)
* Jordan Peele (2017)
* Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty (2018)
* Noah Baumbach (2019)
* Emerald Fennell (2020)
* Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe (2021)
* Todd Field (2022)
* Andrew Haigh (2023)
* Jesse Eisenberg (2024)

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* FAST
* WorldCat

National|

* Germany
* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Czech Republic
* Netherlands
* Israel

People|

* Deutsche Biographie

Other|

* IdRef
* Yale LUX

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