'Liz & Dick' Producer Planning Oprah Winfrey Biopic
Most of the country has not yet seen producer Larry Thompson's latest work, the Lindsay Lohan vehicle "Liz & Dick," but he's already planning his next project.
The producer, who has worked on biographical films about some of the most famous women in history, including Lucille Ball and Cher, is turning his sights on the richest woman in American, television icon Oprah Winfrey.
Thompson has bought the film rights to "Oprah: A Biography," the controversial book by writer Kitty Kelley, and he plans to move forward with the film soon, he said in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly.
"I've optioned Kitty Kelley's book. We have a fantastic take on her life, and we're talking to networks now, as we speak, and we're interviewing writers right now, too," Thompson said. "I am from Mississippi, as is Oprah Winfrey, and I believe that her start on a rural country road in Mississippi to the world stage that she lives is a journey that is nothing less than miraculous. I think it will be the most fascinating biopic I've ever done."
And he's certainly done many fascinating biopics.
"I've made the Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz movie ['Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter']. I've made the Sonny and Cher movie ['And the Beat Goes On: The Sonny and Cher Story']. I've made the Duke and Duchess of Windsor movie ['The Woman He Loved']," Thompson said. "And now I've done Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. I think the only thing I could follow all those up with would be Oprah."
Thompson also spoke about working with Lindsay Lohan on "Liz & Dick," which he said was a valuable creative partnership but also one that took lots of care - and insurance.
"When we first met with [Lohan], she had two probations, and when we finally closed the deal with her, there was only one probation," Thompson says. "If we couldn't have gotten insurance, there would have been no movie. We wound up having to go to Lloyd's of London to get what we called incarceration insurance. ... We had to protect ourselves that if she were to have violated her probation during production, we wouldn't have had to close down and lose our movie."
