Amazon Pick Up Aaron Sorkin’s Lucille Ball Biopic Starring Cate Blanchett
We first posted about a Lucille Ball biopic being in development way back in 2015, but it’s now it’s found a home at Amazon Studios.
Lucy was a massive tv icon back in the 50s & 60s, with shows such as ‘I Love Lucy’ and ‘The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour’, which also starred her husband Desi Arnaz, but it’s her life off-screen which makes her so fascinating. The script is being written by Aaron Sorkin, the man behind ‘The West Wing’, ‘The Social Network’, ‘The Newsroom’, and the ‘Steve Jobs’ biopic, and he certainly has a wealth of material to work with.
She was a feisty, tenacious, and a trailblazer, right from the moment she first stepped onto the stage at age 12. She was the first female head of a major Hollywood studio, the first interracial couple on tv with her Cuban-American husband Desi, and the first pregnant actress to play a pregnant woman on tv. She had both her kids late in life (for the time) at age 40 and 42, and was a working mother, something the press used to berate her about… But being the canny operator she was, she got around this by having a replica of her garden built at the studio, so she could do photo shoots with her children, and release them to the press, who became amazed at how she managed to find the time to work AND be a mother. She also made her studio the first to provide childcare facilities so other working mums didn’t have to give up their jobs.
As head of Desilu Productions (which is now part of the Paramount Studios in LA), she commissioned a number of shows whose names you would still recognise today – ‘Mission Impossible’, ‘The Untouchables’, ‘I Spy’ and ‘Hogan’s Heroes’… and a little sci-fi show called ‘Star Trek’.
Lucy also had a brilliantly comical vindictive side, as Desi found out. He has a tendency to get rather over familiar with the studio’s young starlets which led to them eventually divorcing. But not before Lucy had the doorway to his office/love nest cemented shut whilst he was out, forcing Desi to climb through the windows to get his stuff back. She was a force to be reckoned with!
Although there have been a few tv movies made about the life of Lucille Ball, this is the first major feature to be produced and backed by her children Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr. In a perfect bit of casting, Cate Blanchett is set to take on the iconic role of Lucy.
No news on a release date for the Lucille Ball biopic yet, but we’ll keep you updated.
