The Oscar-winning actress will play the mentally ill mother who has complicated relationship with her famous daughter.
- Oct 18, 2014
AceShowbiz - Susan Sarandon has signed on to play Marilyn Monroe's mother on Lifetime's miniseries about the movie legend. Based on J. Randy Taraborrelli's book "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe", the four-hour miniseries titled "Marilyn" will partly focus on the bombshell's complicated relationship with her mentally ill mother, Gladys Mortenson.
In the series, Gladys is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenic, who is the product of a mother who committed suicide as a result of her own mental illness, and a father who died of syphilitic insanity. Frequently delusional, sometimes violent, Gladys sexually adventurous in her youth but taught her daughter that sex should be avoided at all costs. Deeply devoted to Christian Science, she urges Marilyn to reject her reliance on drugs and that her salvation will be achieved by returning to the tenets of the faith.
The official synopsis says, "Marilyn is both the personification of sex, whose first marriage ironically collapses because of her frigidity, and a fragile artist who seeks the approval and protection of men. But after tumultuous marriages with Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, she realizes she has the strength to stand on her own. She becomes the face and voice of an era, yet wants most of all to be someone's mother and someone's little girl. She's the Marilyn you haven't seen before, the artist who, by masking the truth with an image, gives her greatest performance."
"24" scribe Stephen Kronish wrote the script to the mini with Laurie Collyer attached to direct. No actress has been cast as Marilyn yet. Asylum Entertainment, which produced "The Kennedys", is financing the movie with Kronish, Jonathan Koch, Steven Michaels and Keri Selig as executive producers. The miniseries will premiere next year.
