Oprah Winfrey? To Headline The True Story Of ‘Immortal’ Henrietta Lacks For HBO


Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Oprah Winfrey has teamed with Six Feet Under and True Blood creator Alan Ball to bring The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks to the small screen. According to Deadline, HBO has given a greenlight to the project, which is based on the acclaimed New York Times best-selling book by Rebecca Skloot. It tells the true story of Lacks, “an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line.”

Winfrey not only will executive-produce the movie with Academy Award, Emmy and Golden Globe winner Alan Ball, but will also star as Lacks’ daughter Deborah Lacks, and it is from her point of view that the story is told. Peter Macdissi (Banshee), Carla Gardini (The Hundred-Foot Journey) and Lydia Dean Pilcher (You Don’t Know Jack) will also executive produce, and Rebecca Skloot will co-executive produce the film for Your Face Goes Here Entertainment, Harpo Films and Cine Mosaic production.

Over the past six decades, numerous medical advances have been made from the cells of Henrietta Lacks. The mother of five died in 1951 of cervical cancer, and she never agreed that the cells from a biopsy taken before her death could be used for research. For years, her own family had no idea that her cells were being used and that scientists profited billions of dollars using Lacks’ “HeLa cells.”

Check out the short clip below on how the National Institute of Health finally made good with Lacks’ descendants.

Skloot’s book was released in 2010, and was on the best-seller list for four years. The author spent over ten years researching the book, which chronicles Deborah’s journey “to learn about the mother she never knew and to understand how the unauthorized harvesting of Lacks’ cancerous cells in 1951 led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever. It’s a story of medical arrogance and triumph, race, poverty and deep friendship between the unlikeliest of people,” per DHD.

As Coming Soon notes, DGA winner, Emmy nominee and veteran Broadway director-producer George C. Wolfe (Lackawanna Blues, Angels in America) will direct from his screenplay. Henrietta Lacks’ sons David Lacks, Jr. and Zakariyya Rahman and granddaughter Jeri Lacks are consultants on the film, which is set to begin production this summer.

Lacks story is just the latest creative project Winfrey is tackling. She will not only executive produce Greenleaf, the megachurch drama series that’s coming to her OWN Network next year — she will also appear in it as well.

Lionsgate will produce the pic, that follows the family at the head of megachurch Greenleaf World Ministries. Keith David stars as Bishop James Greenleaf and Lynn Whitfield as his wife, Lady Mae. EW reports that Winfrey will have a recurring role as Mavis McCready, Lady Mae’s sister. The cast also includes Merle Dandridge, Desiree Ross, Lamman Rucker, Kim Hawthorne, Deborah Joy Winans, and Tye White.

“Like so many megachurches in America, Greenleaf World Ministries is more than just a house of worship. It’s a home,” OWN’s official description reads. “But beneath its steeple lies a den of iniquity.”

Winfrey will executive produce with Clement Virgo and writer Craig Wright. Virgo will also direct the pilot episode, which is set to premiere June 21 at 10/9c.

Additionally, Lady O will also appear in the Weinstein Company’s Richard Pryor biopic, starring Mike Epps as Pryor. Lee Daniels will direct the historical drama, which reunites him with his The Butler co-star, Winfrey. The media mogul will play the grandmother who raised Pryor. The cast also includes Kate Hudson as wife Jennifer Pryor, Tracy Morgan will reportedly play comedian Redd Foxx and Eddie Murphy and Taraji P. Henson star as Pryor’s parents.

Oprah Winfrey made her big-screen debut in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple, which earned her an Oscar nomination in 1986. Since then, she has starred as a supporting actress in Beloved, Selma, and she will next co-star in OWN’s forthcoming series Queen Sugar, directed by Ava DuVernay.

[Photo by Greg Allen/Invision/AP]

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