Annaleigh Ashford to play Judy Holliday in new biopic

Perfect casting indeed but that’s about as much as in development this project is in. Let’s see how many years it takes to get off the ground and if she’s still attached by the time it does.

Heck, the Cate Blanchett Lucille Ball biopic announced almost 2 years ago is nowhere near pre-production mode nor is that Janis Joplin biopic.

CT2NYC said: "How brilliant was Judy Holliday in this scene from Born Yesterday?! A classic performance, for which she won the Oscar, beating Bette Davis forAll About Eve and Gloria Swanson for Sunset Boulevard.


Sure, she was good --- but she should have been in distant 3rd place for the Oscar that year. I'd assume that Davis and Swanson split the votes and cancelled each other out.

NOWaWarning said: "Can we just get a Bells are Ringing revival?"



I think the horrible Faith Prince revival and the lackluster Encores staging with Kelli O'Hara have shown that the show is pretty much unworkable in it's original form.

JSquared2 said: "CT2NYC said: "How brilliant was Judy Holliday in this scene from Born Yesterday?! A classic performance, for which she won the Oscar, beating Bette Davis forAll About Eveand Gloria Swanson forSunset Boulevard.


Sure, she was good --- but she should have been indistant 3rd place for the Oscar that year. I'd assume that Davis and Swanson split the votes and cancelled each other out."

I would have voted for Judy Holliday honestly even among those two legendary performances.

Ashford is an amazing talent, and it could be a fascinating story, but I'll believe it when I see it. The producer Gene Kirkwood hasn't done a high-profile film in a long time, and it's odd that Ashford –– who doesn't draw crowds on Broadway –– has been announced before a director.

I'm crossing my fingers that this will be great like My Week With Marilyn, but I fear it will be more like Annette Bening's Gloria Grahame film, Rachel York's Lucille Ball, or Me and Orson Welles.

Updated On: 12/5/18 at 07:20 PM

I'm so excited about this!

I've been doing some research, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, the biopic's main plot point will focus on the abuse Holliday withstood from producer Darryl F. Zanuck. The film is entitled “Smart Blonde,” a reference to Holliday’s IQ of 172. Willy Holtzman (the screenwriter) previously wrote a play about Holliday, also called “Smart Blonde,” but it did not focus on the incident with Zanuck.

He acquired Holliday’s life rights from her son, Jonathan Oppenheim, and optioned them to Kirkwood. Kirkwood has also accquired some music rights, so Ashford will definitely be singing some of Holliday's songs, likely including some tunes from "Bells Are Ringing." Holtzman will executive produce the film and Kirkwood will finance and shop it.

This report was from December 2017, so with the casting of Ashford, it looks like the film is already making more progress than some of the other biopics mentioned here. Here's hoping for a female director!