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Beth Henley (born May 8, 1952, Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.) is an American playwright of regional dramas set in provincial Southern towns, the best known of which, Crimes of the Heart (1982; filmed 1986), was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1981. Henley, a graduate of Southern Methodist University, University Park, Texas (B.F.A., 1974), turned from acting to writing as a career because she felt that the theatre offered few good contemporary roles for Southern women. Her...