The Newark, New Jersey-born[1] 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 film, 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.[1]
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 more than 20 episodes of The Flintstones and is widely credited with creating The Great Gazoo.[2] She wrote an episode of Gilligan's Island (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[3] on the popular CBS television program What's My Line, describing her work at that point as being a TV comedy writer. In her June 11, 1959 appearance on You Bet Your Life, Joanna Lee describes her career and also wins $3,000 in prize money.[citation needed]
Her writing career stretched from 1962 until 1990, including many dozens of comedic and dramatic television series episodes before writing, producing, and directing various TV movies and "Afterschool Specials." In 1971 she wrote two scripts for the television show, Room 222.[4]
In 1973, she won an Emmy Award for Best Writing in Drama, for a 1972 Thanksgiving episode of The Waltons.[1] 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."[5]
Her son, Craig Lee, then a music director at L. A. Weekly, died of AIDS in 1992.[1] Another son, Christopher Ciampa, appeared in several of her films.[6]
Her autobiography, A Difficult Woman in Hollywood, was published in 1999.[1]
Lee died from bone cancer on October 24, 2003, in Santa Monica, at the age of 72.[7]
