Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in Shaker Heights. She received her B.A. in Creative Writing from Miami University of Ohio and moved to Los Angeles when she was 22 where she worked as a production artist and copywriter in film advertising. Her career in movie advertising included work on such movies as ROAD WARRIOR, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, PRIZZI’S HONOR, and many more.
In 1981 she married Cyrus Nowrasteh. Their two sons, Alex and Mark, were born in 1983 and 1985 respectively and while focused on motherhood Betsy started to write screenplays.
Her first produced screenplay was for Largo Entertainment and HBO entitled UNDER PRESSURE, a dark suburban drama about a mother protecting her children. It starred Charlie Sheen and Mare Winningham and aired on HBO in 1997. She continued to write screenplays, but forayed into production design on NORMA JEAN, JACK, AND ME, an independent film that played the festival circuit and on HDTV in 1999-2000.
With her husband, Cyrus, a writer/director, Betsy pursued the rights to the true account of a stoning in Iran entitled THE STONING OF SORAYA M. Believing it to be a powerful and dramatic account of a barbaric practice, Betsy and Cyrus wrote the script together and have brought it to the screen with producers Steve McEveety and John Shepherd of MPOWER Pictures.