Hailey Hails From Family of Literary Lights

Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, author of “A Woman of Independent Means” and “Joanna’s Husband and David’s Wife,” has called Studio City home for 30 years.

Hailey and her late husband, the playwright Oliver Hailey, bought a ranch house in 1967, after moving here to see Oliver’s play “Who’s Happy Now?” performed during the inaugural season of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

These days, the author divides her time between Southern California and the south coast of England. She is beginning work on a new novel, her fifth. According to her daughter, the writer and actress Brooke Hailey, the new book will deal in part with the loss of Oliver Hailey, who died of liver cancer in 1993 at age 60. He had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for 10 years before his death.

After her husband died, Forsythe Hailey cobbled together drafts of his unfinished play, “Round Trip,” and saw it through to production. It premiered the same week as the NBC miniseries version of “A Woman of Independent Means” in 1995.

A few years earlier, while researching her novel “Home Free,” about a homeless family whose car breaks down in front of the house of an affluent woman, Forsythe Hailey became involved in issues surrounding homelessness. She has been an active supporter of the Women’s Care Cottage in North Hollywood, volunteering and serving on the board. She and daughter Brooke share tutoring duties there.

The family creativity has not skipped the Haileys’ two daughters.

Brooke, 27, who played her mother in the miniseries version of “A Woman of Independent Means,” has just finished writing, producing and acting in an independent film, “Chocolate for Breakfast.”

Daughter Kendall Hailey caused a stir in literary and educational circles with the publication of her book, “The Day I Became an Autodidact” in 1988. The work chronicles the A student’s decision to forgo college and become self-taught.