Steel Magnolias. Harling, who earned a law degree at Tulane University, had written his hit play, about a young woman stricken with an illness but determined to live life to the fullest, in a ten-day stretch while coping with the death of his sister from kidney failure in 1985. It is, by Harling's admission, the first thing he ever wrote. After opening off-Broadway, Steel Magnolias tours the United States and Europe before being adapted for the big screen in 1989. Harling would cowrite the screenplay for the comedy Soapdish (1991).
Career Highlights: Soapdish, The Evening Star, Steel Magnolias
First Major Screen Credit: Steel Magnolias (1989)
Biography
Robert Harling often bases his plays and screenplays on his past personal experiences. He originally studied to become a lawyer, but shortly before graduating from the Tulane University School of Law, he decided that acting was the better profession and never took his Bar exam. He lived in New York for several years, acting and working as a voiceover artist before penning the script for what remains his most famous work, Steel Magnolias, which he adapted, in 1989, into a popular film starring Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, and Sally Field. The story behind Harling's second screenwriting effort, Soapdish (1991), came from his personal experience as an actor. He made his directorial debut with his adaptation of novelist Larry McMurty's The Evening Star (1997), which in turn was a sequel to the popular melodrama Terms of Endearment (1983). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
His daughter, Anne, married William Chamberlain (d.1462), a soldier, and later Sir Robert Wingfield (Member of Parliament for Herts, comptroller of the House of Edward IV.
