Born Carol O'Brien in Chicago, IL. When she was five her family moved to the Texas Panhandle and took over operation of the Frying Pan Ranch, near Amarillo. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother was a painter, politician, and teacher. She attended public schools in Amarillo until entering a private high school in Connecticut. She later earned a bachelor's degree from Smith College and a master's in literature from Trinity College, Dublin. In 1964 she married James Louis Sobieski, a lawyer; the couple had three children. After her marriage, she did some acting in community theaters but soon became interested in writing for television in Los Angeles. She began writing episodes for the popular 1960s TV series "Mr. Novak", "The Mod Squad", "Peyton Place" and "Fame Is the Name of the Game". Sobieski created independent and adventurous women in the made-for-TV movies "The Neon Ceiling" (1971), "Amelia Earhart" (1976), her adaptation of Marilyn French's best-selling feminist novel "The Women's Room" (1980), "A Place to Call Home" (1987) and "Sarah, Plain and Tall" (1991). Her television work ranged from the sentimental dramas "Sunshine" (1973) and "Sunshine Christmas" (1977) to the thrillers "Reflections of Murder" (1974) and "The Bourne Identity" (1988). Sobieski scripted her first feature, SUNSHINE PART II in 1975 and subsequently wrote CASEY'S SHADOW (1978), HONEYSUCKLE ROSE (1980), John Huston's misbegotten film of the Broadway musical ANNIE (1982, also assoc. producer) and Tim Hunter's teen film SYLVESTER (1985). She received a posthumous Oscar® nomination for adapting (with novelist Fannie Flagg) the strongly feminist Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Flagg's moving novel about independent-spirited, convention-spurning women living in the South in the 1930s. Sobieski died of liver disease at age 51 in Santa Monica, CA, on November 4, 1990. She was buried in Amarillo. Amarillo College maintains a scholarship fund in her name.  Nominated for Achievement in Writing - Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published 1991: FRIED GREEN TOMATOES (w. Fannie Flagg) 1 nomination