Guinevere Turner was ready for the world to end on January 5, 1975. Just six years old, she was wearing a light blue dress with red flowers. Turner held a stuffed dog as she, along with other members of the Lyman family, waited for the arrival of a spaceship that would take them to Venus.
Turner, now 56 years old, is author of the book, When the World Didn’t End, which details her life growing up in the Lyman family. The Boston-based community of over 100 members was led by musician and writer Mel Lyman.
“I always knew I wanted to write about my childhood. I just, I was either scared or I would try and I wouldn’t like it,” said Turner.
Turner didn’t realize that she had grown up in what she now refers to as a “cult” until she was 22 years old and talking to a therapist.
“I was talking about it, and she said, 'You know, I don't think what you're talking about is a commune. It's a cult.' And I was like, rude! Like, I really was not ready to hear that,” she said.
Ultimately, Turner came to the realization that she had grown up in a cult-like environment. The people in the Lyman family were required to listen to tapes made by Lyman. There was no contact with the outside world. Some of the young girls became child brides. And—among other restrictions— they could only watch films that were on what Lyman called “The Lord’s List."
“I sat with it for a while, and then — but I never wanted to say the word “cult” to people when describing my childhood, because it's almost like, then they would stop really listening and decide for themselves what it was. They would just be like, 'ooh, cult.'”
Turner’s book features her journal entries written when she was a kid. She said this documenting was an effort to preserve what was happening to her.
“Nobody was really paying attention holistically to me, you know, what I mean? So I think some part of me instinctively was like, I'll pay attention, you know? I will record this because no one else has the whole story,” said Turner.
The Lyman family eventually grew to multiple communities across the United States. Turner spent most of her young life with other children on a compound in Kansas.
Her mother ultimately left the family when Turner was 11, and soon after, Turner and her four-year-old sister were forced to leave with her. Turner was devastated. She’d been living away from her mom since she was three years old. Her mom seemed more like a stranger than the kids she’d grown up with.
“I lived in beautiful places, and I had close friendships and a lot of engagement with nature in a way that not all kids get. And having a sense of just being a pack of kids who had each other's backs when we could,” she said.
Though Turner was now out of the Lyman family, she experienced most of her abuse while living in the outside world with her mom and her mom’s boyfriend.
She eventually went to college as a means to escape. And in 1994, she co-wrote her first film, Go Fish. It follows a group of young lesbian women in Chicago as they explore their romantic lives.
In the movie, Turner’s character doesn’t struggle with her sexuality or have a big “coming out” scene. Instead, she has struggles typical of any young person looking to date.
“Like I'm trying to show you how we are the same, which is relationships, jobs, family, friends, blah, blah, blah. But I'm also trying to sneak some things in like when the woman has a one-night stand with a man,” said Turner. “Like these are issues that are specific to us without making it a big “issue movie,” and kind of just trying to keep it on the light, romcom level.”
The film grossed $2.5 million— over ten times its tiny budget. It was a breakout in what was dubbed the “New Queer Cinema.”
Turner went on to co-star in the 1996 Black, lesbian rom com, The Watermelon Woman. She plays Diana, the white love interest of the main character Cheryl. Cheryl, portrayed by film director and screenwriter Cheryl Dunye, is a Black filmmaker and video store employee.
The two eventually become a couple. And later in the movie, Turner’s character is accused of being a white woman who wants to be Black.
“It was a fun character to play because she's just clueless in that kind of white privilege way. Just like, so inside [her] perspective that [she] doesn't even see she’s being made fun of in a way. Like playing that straight was kind of fun,” said Turner.
More recently, Turner drew from her experience growing up in the Lyman family to write the 2018 film Charlie Says.
The film follows the three women who committed the notorious Tate-LaBianca murders. It analyzes the hold that cult leader Charles Manson still had on the women after they were separated from him.
The final scene of Charlie Says offers a fictional, alternative ending for convicted murderer and former Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten. It shows Houten’s character leaving the cult on a motorcycle with a concerned citizen.
“If I see that scene, it still makes me cry. Like, that's the most heartbreaking thing in the world. What it’s really underlining is that she made the wrong choice,” said Turner.
Van Houten spent 53 years in prison and was released in 2023. She now lives in a halfway house in California.
Turner is now working on a film adaptation of her memoir When the World Didn’t End. She has also written a fourth movie with frequent collaborator Mary Harron about queer kids who are outcasts of the foster system.
Though Turner is part of the lesbian film community through movies like Go Fish and The Watermelon Woman, she’s also someone that helps bring awareness to the dangers of cults.
At just six years old, Turner was ready to leave everything behind for a spaceship ride to Venus. Instead, she’s found meaning in her life, right here on planet Earth.
