Lee Purcell

Purcell was born Lee Jeune Williams at the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point (North Carolina), the elder daughter of Major Frank D. Williams Jr., a highly decorated Marine Corps pilot who was killed while on active duty when she was two months old.^[5] Her mother, Lee (née McKnight) Williams (1925-2014), remarried, to Donald Purcell, a U.S. Navy doctor assigned to the Marine Corps.^[6] Lee Purcell has a younger sister.^[7]

She graduated from Paragould High School in 1965^[7] and briefly attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri as a dance and theatre student until she was expelled.^{[why?][8][9][10][11]}

She moved to California in 1967^[12] and studied acting. Purcell supported herself by working in commercials^[11] and selling clothes at a disco.^[13]

In 1969, Purcell was selected for her first feature film by Steve McQueen in his company's production of Adam at Six A.M., co-starring Michael Douglas.^[14] Asked to explain why he chose Purcell from nearly 500 other available actresses, McQueen said, "It wasn't easy. We kept narrowing down the field over a period of weeks until it came to giving screen tests to six of them. All of them were good, but Lee seemed to jump right out of the screen."^[15]

Her television work included roles as Billie Dove and Olivia de Havilland in two biopic TV movies: The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977)^[16] and My Wicked, Wicked Ways: The Legend of Errol Flynn (1985).^[17]

She was nominated for two Emmy Awards. In 1991, she was nominated as Outstanding Lead Actress for Long Road Home^[18] and in 1994 as Outstanding Supporting Actress for Secret Sins of the Father. She was co-producer, and starred in the 1998 low-budget cable-TV movie Malaika (alternate title Tons of Trouble).^[19]

Purcell's film career wound down in 1983 and she has only had five motion picture credits since, the last in 2015. She has continued to do television projects.^[20]

In December 2010 Purcell launched an interactive fashion and beauty website, BoomerBabes, geared towards Baby Boomer women. The website did not gain any visitors^[21] and BoomerBabes stopped updating in 2014.^[22]

Purcell is a member of the Church of Scientology.^[23]

Feature films

Television

Special projects

Media related to Lee Purcell at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website
• Lee Purcell at IMDb
• Fashion and beauty website created by Purcell