Oprah Winfrey will star in “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” which has been green lighted for HBO Films. The premium cablenetwork made the announcement on Monday.
Based on Rebecca Skloot’s best-seller, Winfrey will also serve as an exec producer on the film, along with Alan Ball, Peter Macdissi, Carla Gardini and Lydia Dean Pilcher. Skloot will serve as a co-exec producer.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the true story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line. Told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks (Oprah Winfrey), the film chronicles her search 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.
Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which took more than a decade to research and write, instantly hit The New York Times bestseller list upon publication, and remained there for more than four years.
Henrietta Lacks’ sons David Lacks, Jr. and Zakariyya Rahman and granddaughter Jeri Lacks are consultants on the film, which aims to begin production this summer.
