Viola Davis To Star in Barbara Jordan Biopic

Rod 2.0 is reporting that a major motion picture about Black lesbian icon and civil rights pioneer Barbara Jordan is being put together to star Oscar nominee Vioa Davis and be directed by openly gay, award-winning director Paris Barclay.

Variety reports about the deal:

Davis is eyeing the project as a starring vehicle that she will produce with her husband, Julius Tennon, through their JuVee banner along with Barclay, Shelly Glasser and Diane Nabatoff.

Glasser and Nabatoff optioned rights to the biography "Barbara Jordan: American Hero," by Mary Beth Rogers. Scribe Paris Qualles is adapting the book for a pic that traces Jordan's rise from a poor Houston neighborhood to an elected member of Congress and an influential figure in liberal politics.

Glasser and Nabatoff initiated the project a few years ago and made separate overtures to Davis and Barclay. The thesp and the helmer have been looking for a project to collaborate on ever since Davis starred in Barclay's CBS medical drama "City of Angels" in 2000. The prospect of telling the story of Jordan, who died at age 59 of leukemia in 1996, resonated immediately with both of them.

And Rod tells us about the LGBT angle:

Jordan was the first African American to serve in the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South, and the first to deliver the keynote address at a national party convention.

But, given how private a life she led, Jordan was considered something of a mystery, even to her close friends–friends who didn’t know about the illness that would eventually kill her at just 59 years old…. And while she never publicly discussed her sexual orientation (not that she had to), Jordan’s obituary mentioned her long-term (30-year) relationship with Nancy Earl, an educational psychologist.

[...]

Jordan died in 1996. [Ten] years later, the Jordan/Rustin Coalition was created in California in her namesake and that of Bayard Rustin. JRC organizes and mobilizes the Black LGBT community around Los Angeles.

There are lots of projects in Hollywood which are announced by press release and articles in Variety that never get actualized into movies in the theater. But this is an exciting announcement. There are many bloggers in joining me in the the hope that it gets made, and it earns Davis her much deserved Best Actress Oscar!