During the early 1960s, Turner met and became friends with director Robert Altman, first meeting while working on an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and then on his 1964 "Kraft Suspense Theatre" episode "Once Upon a Savage Night", which was expanded and broadcast as the TV movie "Nightmare in Chicago". During filming, Turner met her second husband, producer and director Reza Badiyi, who encouraged her to write an adaptation of a Mira Michal short story from "The New Yorker" called "At Lake Laguna", which she brought to Altman to possibly make, but that fell apart right before production was scheduled to begin. Altman thought of Turner when he read John Haase's book "Me and the Arch Kook Petulia". Turner wrote the original adaptation, which became the film "Petulia".