Originally Posted by
TheMotownManiac
I think the story of Josephine Baker could’ve made an incredible film, it just depends on the strength of the screenplay. Audiences can get drawn into anything if it’s well written and executed. Lady sings the blues was a hit when most people that went to it didn’t even know who Billie Holiday was. Look at Yentl, who would’ve thought a movie about a Jewish girl trying to pass herself off as a Jewish boy so she could study the Talmud would be a hit movie? Wow, I wasn’t able to sit through it, and we left rather early into it because we were snickering and we didn’t want to ruin it for anybody, but my point is that it found an audience with a subject matter that absolutely would find very little interest outside the Jewish community . I think Josephine Baker‘s life story has so much interest in it and so many elements to it, that it would be difficult not to have a compelling screenplay unless you tried to work her whole life into two hours which is so often a mistake. I think it could’ve worked . Certainly bodyguard could’ve worked at maybe giving her better music to sing than that which showed up on the ross 78 album.
much has been said about her being washed up in movies after the disaster of the wiz, but it’s not true. She was being pinched for things right along and working very closely with Barry Diller @Paramount on her own project. When she finally gave up her demands and looked for a good script, Jack Nicholson told her about witches of Eastwick and they were quite interested. I have a friend that worked on it and he told me they held the part that went to Michelle Pfeiffer for as long as they could, while she either decided if she was going to reproduce , or get a positive test back. She decided on getting pregnant and had to say no. At the time Cher was not linked to the deal, but was very interested. If not for the RossNess monster, it could easily have been Cher Ross Sarandon. My guess is that she is happy with her choice, but it would’ve been nice. With Evan following so closely behind, the feasibility of her doing a movie for years was nil.
I think that if Berry Gordy had left her alone after lady sings the blues, she might’ve been able to have quite a significant movie career, his Avoricious narcissism made it impossible for her to have built Lady sings the blues into something huge.
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