“Feud: Bette and Joan” writers Michael Zam and Jaffe Cohen are making a biopic about iconic star Vivien Leigh.
The duo received an Emmy nomination with Ryan Murphy for best writing for a limited series for the FX show.
Zam and Cohen will adapt the feature from Hugo Vickers’ “Vivien Leigh: A Biography.” The film will focus on the life of the actress and her relationship with Laurence Olivier, who was her spouse from 1940 to 1960.
Leigh won best actress Academy Awards for her portrayal of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind” (1939) and Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951). She also won a Tony in 1963 for best actress in a musical for “Tovarich.” She suffered from bipolar disorder and tuberculosis, and died at the age of 53 in 1967.
The movie will be produced and financed by MGR Films’ Tim MacReady and Mira Vucevic, along with D. Matt Geller and David A. Stern through their Sleeping Giants Films production company.
Zam and Cohen have a number of film and TV projects in development, including a project based on William J. Mann’s biography “Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Star” and “Kate,” a biopic about the secret life of Katharine Hepburn.
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Zam and Cohen are repped by ICM Partners, Sentient’s Renee Tab, and attorney Sean Marks. Vickers is repped by Aitken Alexander Associates in the U.K.
