Beth Henley (playwright)  turned from acting to writing because  the theatre offered too few roles for Southern women. Her best known play, Crimes of the Heart, received the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Circle Award for the best new American play in 1981. Crimes of the Heart was the first drama to receive the Pulitzer Prize before being produced on Broadway. (She also received an Academy Award nomination for the best-adapted screenplay for Crimes of the Heart.)  Her other plays include The Miss Firecracker Contest which had a successful Off Broadway run and was made into a movie in 1989. She lives in Mississippi and continues to write for the stage, screen, and movies.