TV Series on the Life of Clementine Churchill in Development
July 28, 2022; Boston, MA– A five-part drama based on the public and private life of Clementine Churchill, wife of British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, is being developed for television by MASTERPIECE/PBS and Maven Screen Media, alongside Origin Pictures and Sayoko Teitelbaum. Award-winning writer Margaret Nagle (Warm Springs, Boardwalk Empire, The Good Lie) will write the original script with the working title Mrs. Churchill and executive produce alongside Celine Rattray, Trudie Styler, David Thompson, Sayako Teitelbaum and Susanne Simpson.
MASTERPIECE Executive Producer Susanne Simpson made the announcement during the virtual Television Critics Association press tour.
This is the untold story of a fiercely independent and very modern heroine who risked everything to save her country and the world from fascism–and her husband from himself. Clementine’s story has slipped through the cracks of history. The magnitude of her many achievements are only recently being recognized.
“Winston has said that the Second World War would have been impossible without Clementine, and yet she has not been given the credit she deserves. We are thrilled to be working with MASTERPIECE and developing a series about this complicated, extraordinary woman,” said Nagle and Maven co- founder Celine Rattray. Maven is producing with Sayoko Teitelbaum and David Thompson of Origin Pictures.
“Our MASTERPIECE viewers will be enthralled by this historical drama about a fiercely independent woman who influenced the course of world history,” said Simpson. “Margaret Nagle is the perfect writer to tell Clementine’s true story, and we’re proud to be partnering with Maven on this compelling series.” MASTERPIECE is presented on PBS by GBH Boston.
Each episode of the limited series will follow Clementine through pivotal moments of her life. Raised by an unstable mother in relative poverty
caring for her siblings, Clementine became a suffragette working two jobs. Known as the “Broke Beauty,” she refused to marry for money or to a man she didn’t love. The series will follow her courtship with Winston and struggle with motherhood, her broken relationship with her young niece, Diana Mitford, who was brainwashed by fascism, her pivotal relationship with American Harry Hopkins (FDR’s conscience) who held the purse strings to (yet to be created) Lend Lease, ensuring England could survive against the Germans until America joined the war, and a climactic trip to Russia where she goes toe to toe with Stalin. The show will be a window into one of history’s most remarkable and complicated women.
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