Biography

Barbara Jean Sills was born in Los Angeles, California on March 7, 1937. She started her writing career as a reporter for her college's newspaper, UCLA's Daily Bruin. After college, she married attorney Jack Esensten and they had three daughters, Teri, Randi and Deena. The couple divorced when Barbara Esensten decided to make a career herself: she did some freelance writing, went for counseling, enrolled again at UCLA and became a news reporter on radio. Then, in 1987 she was hired by Esther Shapiro and Richard Alan Shapiro to write scripts for their series Dynasty (1981) - and for this purpose was paired with James H. Brown. It was just the beginning of a long and fertile career of joint writing assignments as the duo would later write for Loving (1983) and co-create its spin-off The City (1995). They also wrote for Guiding Light (1952) - including a buzzed-about tenure as head-writers -, Port Charles (1997), One Life to Live (1968), All My Children (1970) and spent six months at "Days of Our Lives" in 2007. She won a Daytime Emmy as a member of the Guiding Light (1952) writing team in 1993 amongst numerous nominations, including one in 2012 for the final season of All My Children (1970).
- IMDb mini biography by: Torsten B. Tomaschek