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 Der Denver-Clan (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
Springfield Story (1952) -
including a buzzed-about tenure as head-writers -,
Port Charles (1997),
Liebe, Lüge, Leidenschaft (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
Springfield Story (1952)
writing team in 1993 amongst numerous nominations, including one in
2012 for the final season of
All My Children (1970).
