Strong women battling breast cancer. A sympathetic hero fighting for a cure. An ensemble of gifted actresses and a sexy charmer as their white knight. A three-hankie script and a four-hankie ending. Living Proof (Saturday, Oct. 18 at 9 pm/ET) might be Lifetime's most Lifetime-y movie ever. And yet the inspiring story, based on pioneering oncologist Dennis Slamon's dogged pursuit for a cure, took seven years to get to the screen — a struggle nearly as hard-fought as Slamon's battle to take his breast-cancer drug, Herceptin, to patients.
"Dennis Slamon became a hero to me," says scriptwriter Vivienne Radkoff, who had read Robert Bazell's 1998 book Her-2, chronicling Slamon's efforts to get Herceptin on the market. "I was obsessed, but something would always stop the project." One interested producer had to drop out after being diagnosed with breast cancer herself.
Eventually, Radkoff's script would find some big-name champions — producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun), actress (turned producer) Renée Zellweger and playing Slamon, singer-actor Harry Connick Jr. "No one would make Vivienne's movie," Zadan says. "She brought the story to us, hoping that we could somehow force it through the system. We've done a lot of dramatic shows that we care about, but this seemed to be the most important of all."
See who else is in the impressive cast after the jump.
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Renee Zellweger is bringing her star power to Lifetime as an exec producer on Living Proof, a new original movie. She's teaming up with her former Chicago producers, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, for the TV flick, which chronicles the true story of Dr. Denny Slamon, who developed the breast cancer drug Herceptin 2. Harry Connick Jr. will play the lead.According to the Reporter, Zadan and Meron brought the script to Zellweger, for whom breast cancer issues are close to the heart. Dr. Denny Slamon treated Zellweger's publicist. Living Proof will be shot in Connick's hometown of New Orleans, and will premiere in October, as part of Lifetime's "Stop Breast Cancer for Life" initiative. — Anna Dimond
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In an interview airing on Sunday's 60 Minutes, country singer Kenny Chesney sets the record straight on his sexuality, saying, "It's not true" that his marriage to Renée Zellweger broke up because he's, you know.... "Maybe I should have come out and said, 'No, I'm not [gay],' but I didn't want to draw any more attention to [the rumor circulated at the time]," he says. As for citing "fraud" — sometimes code for "One of us is gay" — as the reason for their September 2005 annulment, he and Renée believed that would be the "least harmful" legal term. "And boy, were we wrong!"
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Per the Hollywood Reporter, John Krasinski is in talks to join George Clooney in Leatherheads, a 1920s-set romantic comedy to be directed by Clooney. Provided the spring film shoot can be worked into his production schedule for The Office, Krasinski would play a college-football sensation who is recruited by pro team owner Clooney, only to see his fiancée (Renée Zellweger) fall for his boss. Awwww, poor Jim. But hey, man, it's Clooney we're talking about. Chin up.
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The Hollywood Reporter's fifth-annual accounting of the biz's best-paid actresses names Nicole Kidman this year's biggest breadwinner, earning as much as $17 million per film. This marks the first time that Julia Roberts, MIA from the live-action circuit this year, didn’t top the list. Rounding out the top 10 were Reese Witherspoon, Renée Zellweger, Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz (at $15 million each), Halle Berry ($14 mil), Charlize Theron and Angelina Jolie ($10 mil), Kirsten Dunst ($8 to 10 mil), and Jennifer Aniston ($8 million).Meanwhile, I'm reading in the Post that Sean Connery turned down hundreds of millions to play Gandalf in the LOTR trilogy. Someone alert NOW.
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