Leigh Chapman

Leigh Chapman was born Rosa Lee Chapman on March 29, 1939 in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Following graduation from Winthrop College in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Chapman moved to Los Angeles, California in the early 1960's. Her first job was working as a secretary at the William Morris Agency. Leigh acted in a few TV shows -- most notably a recurring part as 'Robert Vaughn''s secretary on several episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) -- prior to embarking on a successful career as a writer of tough-minded action-adventure fare for both TV series and motion pictures. Perhaps best known for penning the gritty screenplay for the car chase cult classic Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974), Chapman also wrote the scripts for such hard-edged action outings as Steel (1979), The Octagon (1980) and King of the Mountain (1981). Moreover, Leigh did an uncredited script polish on Robert Aldrich's last movie ...All the Marbles (1981) and a script treatment for the blaxploitation blast, Truck Turner (1974), as well as rewrote the pilot for Walker, Texas Ranger (1993) (she attributed this latter credit to a pseudonym after she had a falling out with the creative people behind that particular program). In her later years, Chapman pursued underwater photography; her work was featured at a 2011 exhibit at Calumet Photography in Hollywood, California. Leigh died from cancer, at age 75, at her home in West Hollywood, California on November 4, 2014; she's survived by two sisters and a brother. Show less «