BROOKS, Fern Field 1934-

(Fern Field)

PERSONAL:

Born June 28, 1934, in Milan, Italy; daughter of William (a businessman) and Betty (a business woman; maiden name, Dosnansky) Field; married Norman G. Brooks (a producer), May 13, 1979 (deceased, 1991). Education: Attended Columbia University, Hunter College, and University of California.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—The Agency, 10351 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025.

CAREER:

Producer, director, and writer. USA Network, director of programming, 1996—; Sci Fi Channel, vice president of programming, 1996—.

MEMBER:

Women in Film, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Directors' Guild, Writers Guild.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Academy Award nomination, 1970, for "A Different Approach"; Gold Camera Award, Silver Candy Award, Chris Statuette, and Cine Golden Eagle Award, all 1980, all for "It's a New Day"; Emmy Award nomination, 1981, for Please Don't Hit Me Mom; Ohio State Award, Gabriel Award, George Foster Peabody Award, and Emmy Award, all 1981, all for "The Wave." Brooks has also received two Humanitas Awards and a Distinguished Service Award.

WRITINGS:

(As Fern Field) They Call Me Destiny, 1962.

(As Fern Field) It's a New Day (screenplay), 1980.

The Day My Kid Went Punk: ABC Afterschool Special (screenplay), ABC, 1986.

Letters to My Husband, Career Press (Franklin Lakes, NJ), 1994.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

More Letters, a sequel to Letters to My Husband and Days of Wine and Roma, an autobiography.

SIDELIGHTS:

Fern Field Brooks has spent over three decades working in the television industry. She has produced a variety of television shows, including The Facts of Life, Joe's World, and Mr. Wizard's World. After her third husband, whom she was married to for eleven years, passed away, Brooks began writing letters to her deceased husband as a way to cope with the grief. Letters to My Husband is the result of those letters.

On the Web site Letters to My Husband, Brooks says, "Writing this book helped me through a dark and terrible time. And now it is helping a lot of people through theirs." A Publishers Weekly reviewer said, "Brooks … wrote intimate letters filled with professional ups and downs, family events and her unanswered longing for the way things were. The chatty, spirited letters construct a memoir that is one middle-aged woman's medium for moving on for mourning."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, Volume 4, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1987.

PERIODICALS

Publishers Weekly, October 2, 1995, review of Letters to My Husband, p. 63.

ONLINE

Letters to My Husband,http://www.letterstomyhusband.com/ (September 24, 2003).*