Guinevere Turner
Guinevere Turner in January 2006
Born
Guinevere Jane Turner

May 23, 1968[1] (age 55)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma materSarah Lawrence College
Occupations
  • Actress
  • screenwriter
  • film director
Years active1994–present

Guinevere Jane Turner (born May 23, 1968) is an American actress, screenwriter, and film director. She wrote the films American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page and played the lead role of the dominatrix Tanya Cheex in Preaching to the Perverted. She was a story editor and played recurring character Gabby Deveaux on Showtime's The L Word.

Early life

Turner was born in Boston, and is the oldest of six children. Her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Hobbs Turner, was a member of the United States Marine Corps in 1944 during World War II.[2]

Turner spent the first eleven years of her life as part of the Lyman Family, raised in various communes around the U.S. with over 100 members who were devotees of Mel Lyman. In accordance with the customs of the Lyman Family, Turner was not raised by her mother, but she and her younger sister were eventually ejected from the Family after their mother chose to leave.[3] Turner considered rejoining the group when she was 18, but eventually chose to attend college.[4]

Career

Turner co-wrote and co-produced her first film, 1994's Go Fish, with her then-girlfriend, director Rose Troche.[5] Turner also starred in the film, portraying a young woman named Max whose friends help her find a new girlfriend, Ely, portrayed by VS Brodie. Director Kevin Smith was a fan of the movie, particularly a scene in it wherein, in an imagined sequence, some of a character's friends chastise her for "selling out" and sleeping with a man, and used it as an inspiration for his own take on a similar theme in his own film Chasing Amy. Turner has cameos in both Chasing Amy and Smith's later film Dogma. Smith also named Joey Lauren Adams' character in Smith's Mallrats after Turner. Another early film appearance was in Cheryl Dunye's 1996 independent film The Watermelon Woman.

Turner and I Shot Andy Warhol director Mary Harron wrote the screenplay for the film version of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, which Harron directed. Turner has a small role in the film, in which she delivers the in-joke, "I'm not a lesbian!".[6]

A writer and story editor for the first two seasons of The L Word, Turner also made several guest appearances on the show as Alice Pieszecki's screenwriter ex-girlfriend, Gabby.[7]

In 2005, Turner wrote the script for BloodRayne. It was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay in 2006. In the documentary Tales from the Script, she stated in an interview that director Uwe Boll only used about 25% of her screenplay.[8] In 2005, she co-wrote the script for The Notorious Bettie Page with Mary Harron, who directed the film. Turner and Harron collaborated again as screenwriter and director, respectively, on the 2018 film Charlie Says.[9]

Turner's first foray into web television was the 2008 online drama series, FEED, directed by Mel Robertson, launched on AfterEllen.com.[10] In 2014, she appeared alongside Nayo Wallace, Candis Cayne and Cathy DeBuono in Jane Clark's horror comedy film Crazy Bitches.[11]

Turner has directed several short films, such as Hummer and Hung, which have appeared in many international film festivals.[12]

In 2019, The New Yorker published an essay by Turner entitled "My Childhood in a Cult," about growing up in the Lyman Family.[13] Four years later, Turner published a memoir, When the World Didn't End, expanding greatly on the story of her youth, and continuing on to her adolescence in an abusive household.[14] Kirkus Reviews called the book "a moving portrait of a bizarre childhood written with emotional nuance and bittersweet deliverance ... The author’s prose is reflective, vivid, and confessional, a rich combination full of striking imagery."[15]

Personal life

Turner is openly lesbian.[16] She lives in New York and Los Angeles.

Filmography

Film

Television

  • 2004–2005: The L Word (TV series, writer)
  • 2016: Sugar (web series, director, episode: Chapter 5)[18]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Turner, Guinevere 1968-". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved July 3, 2023.
  2. ↑ "Guinevere Turner on Instagram: "My Granny did not play! #1944 #marine #shelookssohappy #veteransday #beamarineandfreeamarinetofight"".
  3. ↑ Peleg, Oren (May 7, 2019). "How to Understand Charles Manson: Hire a Screenwriter Who Grew Up in a Cult". Vanity Fair. Retrieved May 9, 2019.
  4. ↑ Turner, Guinevere (April 26, 2019). "My Childhood in a Cult". The New Yorker. Retrieved April 29, 2019.
  5. ↑ Maslin, Janet (June 10, 1994). "Review/Film; Girl Meets Girl, Laughter Included". The New York Times. New York Times Company. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  6. ↑ Pooley, Jack (November 20, 2021). "20 Things You Didn't Know About American Psycho". WhatCulture. Retrieved July 29, 2023.
  7. ↑ Jess (June 10, 2010). "Guinevere Turner, From "Go Fish" to L-Wording: The Autostraddle Interview". Autostraddle. Retrieved July 29, 2023.
  8. ↑ Gilbert, Ben (October 26, 2011). "Bloodrayne screenwriter explains the perils of working with Uwe Boll". Engadget. Los Angeles, California: Weblogs, Inc. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Charlie Says". IMDb. Retrieved September 3, 2021.
  10. ↑ Hustvedt, Marc (July 28, 2008). "Real-Life Digital Vigilante Inspires Gritty New Series 'FEED'". Tubefilter News. Los Angeles, California: Tubefilter, Inc. Archived from the original on December 18, 2019. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  11. ↑ Wilson, Staci Layne (February 10, 2015). "Exclusive Interview with Crazy Bitches Writer-Director Jane Clark". Dread Central. San Diego, California: Dread Central Media, LLC. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Director". GuinevereTurner.com. Retrieved July 29, 2023.
  13. ↑ Turner, Guinevere (April 29, 2019). "My Childhood in a Cult". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 29, 2023.
  14. ↑ Neumyer, Scott (May 24, 2023). "Guinevere Turner Has Been Writing This Memoir Her Entire Life". Shondaland. Retrieved July 29, 2023.
  15. ↑ "WHEN THE WORLD DIDN'T END". Kirkus Reviews. May 23, 2023. Retrieved July 29, 2023.
  16. ↑ Warn, Sarah (August 2003). "Interview with Guinevere Turner". AfterEllen. p. 2. Archived from the original on January 13, 2007. Retrieved May 4, 2007.
  17. ↑ Harris, Dana (December 9, 2003). "Sundance sets shorts". Variety.
  18. ↑ "Sugar". ITVS. 2016.

Further reading

  • Bernstein, Kate (January–February 2005). "The Talented Tenth". The Independent. Vol. 28, no. 1. p. 53.
  • Kemp, Kristen (February–March 2004). "A Real Head Turner" (PDF). h.e.r.s. Vol. 1, no. 1. p. 6.
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