Born in Long Beach, California, Linda Woolverton holds a BFA in Theater Arts from Cal State University Long Beach and a Master’s Degree in Theater for Children from Cal State Fullerton.

Following graduation, she started her own children’s theater, for which she performed, wrote and directed productions that traveled to schools, parks, malls, churches and local theaters.

In 1980, she began a four year stint as an executive with CBS Television, where she developed both children’s and late-night programming.

Against all advice, she quit and became a full time writer. She wrote two young adult novels “Star Wind” and “Running Before the Wind” for Houghton Mifflin. She also paid the bills by writing scripts for animated series like Ewoks, The Real Ghostbusters, Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers and Ducktales.

When one ofher novels came to the attention of a Disney executive, she was hired to work on several animated projects including one involving Winnie the Pooh that was eventually shelved.

Woolverton was brought in for a rewrite on Beauty and the Beast and two and a half years afterwards and four completed drafts, she was still working with the project.

Woolverton said that she drew her inspiration for her screenplay and approach to the character of Belle not from the famous 1946 Jean Cocteau film version of the famous tale but from the 1933 film Little Women. Woolverton also admitted that there was a lot of Katherine Hepburn from that film in Woolverton’s characterization of Belle.

Woolverton’s next project was Walt Disney Pictures’ live action feature Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey (1993),