Marla Hanson is a screenwriter and ex-model. Born in Independence, Missouri, Hanson attended college in Dallas, Texas. After working selling real estate and insurance, a job promotion brought her to New York City. There, a part-time modeling job eventually became a full-time career in the 1980s.

In June 1986, she rejected the sexual advances of her landlord, Steve Roth. Roth hired two friends, Steven Bowman and Darren Norman, to attack Hanson. Hanson testified that Roth asked her to step outside a bar, then stood by while the two men, after announcing a "stick-up," slashed her face with a razor blade. The assault left three wounds that required surgery and over 100 stitches to close, resulting in permanent scars. Roth and the two attackers were tried separately, with Judge Jeffrey Atlas presiding over both trials. In Roth`s trial, he was found guilty of first degree assault for arranging the attack. In the trial of Bowman and Norman a few months later, Hanson was subjected to a controversial cross examination by Bowman`s defense attorney Alton H. Maddox, who impugned her character in a line of questioning the prosecutor called "disgusting and filthy". Maddox also asserted that Hanson had "racial hangups" that led her to falsely identify Bowman and Norman, who are black, as her attackers. Hanson and her attorney later publicly criticized the criminal justice system for allowing her to be humiliated on the witness stand. Bowman and Norman were found guilty. At sentencing, Atlas gave Roth the 5 to 15 year maximum sentence, but not before telling a weeping Hanson and her attorney he was "incensed" at their public criticism of the criminal justice system. After a brief recess, Atlas apologized to Hanson and her lawyer. Bowman and Norman were sentenced to the 5 to 15 year maximum sentence as well. Hanson has since lobbied for reform in the way victims of crimes are treated in criminal courts.