Lona Williams
| Lona Williams | |
|---|---|
 Williams in 1992 | |
| Born |
September 26, 1966 [1] Hennepin, Minnesota, U.S.[1] |
| Occupation | Producer, writer, actress |
| Years active | 1991–present |
Lona Willams (born September 26, 1966 in Hennepin, Minnesota) is an American television producer, writer and actress.
Life and career
Williams was raised in Rosemount, Minnesota,[2] where her father, Les, was a middle school math teacher. Williams participated in a number of beauty pageants as a child and was crowned Minnesota's Junior Miss in 1985, before becoming the runner up in the year's America's Junior Miss, winning a $10,000 scholarship.[2][3] She graduated from Rosemount High School shortly thereafter.
Williams attended the University of Minnesota and after she took a screen-writing course there, her teacher encouraged her to move to California to find work. After working as an assistant on one show, Jerry Belson helped her get a job as a writing assistant on The Simpsons.[2] She occasionally provided voices for the show, including that of Amber Dempsey, a single-episode character from "Lisa the Beauty Queen".[4] She noted: "I really was only a typist for the show. But by working on the script, I learned how the scripts were put together. I would go to work and type all day, and come home and work on my spec scripts for The Simpsons and Roseanne."[2]
Bruce Helford hired Williams as a writer on the short-lived Someone Like Me before in 1995 signing her up as a writer and producer on The Drew Carey Show. She stayed for three seasons and wrote the screenplay Dairy Queens which was retitled and released in 1999 as Drop Dead Gorgeous.[2][5] She also wrote the original script for the 2001 film Sugar & Spice.[6] She co-wrote the script of Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.
References
- 1 2 Birth reference results from FamilySearch.org
- 1 2 3 4 5 Carey, Tim (1998-10-26). "Rosemount's Lona Williams Has Written Her Way to the Big Time With Scripts For Some of Television's Top Sitcoms and the News Movie, Dairy Queens.". St. Paul Pioneer Press. p. 1B.
- ↑ Jim MacDonald (1985-06-22). "There She Is". The Orlando Sentinel. p. A2.
- ↑ Groening, Matt (1997). Richmond, Ray; Coffman, Antonia, eds. The Simpsons: A Complete Guide to Our Favorite Family (1st ed.). New York: HarperPerennial. ISBN 978-0-06-095252-5. LCCN 98141857. OCLC 37796735. OL 433519M.. p. 95.
- ↑ Jeff Vice (1999-06-23). "Drop Dead Gorgeous". Deseret News. p. W03.
- ↑ Roger Ebert (2001-01-26). "All the right moves - These cheerleaders are made of more than 'Sugar & Spice'". Chicago Sun-Times. p. 29.