Leigh Chapman

Actress and screenwriter 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 in the early 1960s. 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 Napoleon Solo (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. Although possibly best-known for penning the gritty screenplay for the car chase cult classic, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974), she also wrote scripts for such hard-edged action outings as Steel (1979), The Octagon (1980) and King of the Mountain (1981). She also 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 of cancer, aged 75, at her home in West Hollywood, California on November 4, 2014. She was survived by her siblings (two sisters and a brother).