Book-based HBO film tells story few knew
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot was a publishing and scientific sensation that, in this decade, spent 75 weeks on the New York Times’ paperback nonfiction bestseller list.
The book tells the story of an African-American woman whose “immortal” cell line, known as HeLa, came from her cervicalcancer cells in 1951.
Skloot, as both narrator and author, traced the afterlife of these cells: HeLa emerged as one of the most widely used lines in medical research and helped establish the multibillion-dollar vaccine, cancer-treatment and in-vitro-fertilization industry.
This was all done without the knowledge of, consent of or payment to Lacks’ family as it struggled with racism and poverty in Baltimore.
The movie adaptation, which will make its debut tonight on HBO, takes a different storytelling approach, focusing on the lives of Lacks’ children, particularly daughter Deborah, played by Oprah Winfrey.
Director/co-writer George C. Wolfe said that he shifted the point of view away from Skloot (Rose Byrne) to Deborah because he found her to be “a ferociously smart and incredibly creative, brave and daring” woman whose loss put her on a “journey to know her mother in essence to know herself.”
During a recent phone interview, the 63-yearold Winfrey, who was also an executive producer on the project, talked about the book’s resonance, her reluctant decision to star “March of the Penguins” (2005) “Monkey Kingdom” (2015) “Bears” (2014) “African Cats” (2011) “Born in China” (2017)
“Crazy, Stupid, Love” (2011) “Closer” (2004) “Last Night” (2011) “The Vow” (2012) “The Promise” (2017)
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in the movie and her life focus of sharing the stories of women, particularly of African-American women.
When did you first learn about the story of Henrietta Lacks?
I only learned about it after reading the book in 2010. And I said, “Let’s get the rights.” I wanted to tell the story because I lived and worked in Baltimore as a young reporter for eight years, and I never in all those years of reporting, of being involved in the community, going to church every single Sunday at Bethel A.M.E., never once heard the name “Henrietta Lacks.” So I thought, when I read the book, “Wow, if I don’t know this story, I’m sure that there are many, many other people who also don’t know.”
One of the important themes of your work is addressing sexual violence experienced by girls and young women. Why?
I get to say, through the dramatic interpretation of these stories, what I tried to say (on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” 1986-2011) in 135 episodes of stories with child molesters, victims of child abuse, talking to the molesters themselves. I tried and tried to make an impression on the consciousness of America about what sexual abuse looked like and its long-term effects.
How do the book and movie address ... Henrietta’s legacy — that her cells were so instrumental to science, but she was virtually invisible in American history?
I live to tell stories that touch on what it means to be a black woman in the world, so I still feel it’s a miracle that we know it was an African-American woman who contributed all this to the medical field, and we wouldn’t even know the story without Rebecca Skloot.
In the book “Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century,” sociologist Dorothy Roberts says that the story of Henrietta Lacks ultimately challenges the view that African-Americans were inherently inferior because her cells, “although they came from a black woman, helped to improve the lives of people the world over and testify to our common humanity.” How could she die in a segregated ward and yet have her cells travel the world over?
How can you have Dorothy Dandridge come and sing at your club, and then she can’t use the bathroom and find a hotel? “We certainly want to be entertained by you and appreciate you and make ourselves feel good from the experience of your art — but, nope, can’t sit down, can’t eat.”
In 1951. all the people who benefited from those cells didn’t know that it was a black woman’s cells. It’s indicative of the times.
This is the thing I choose to focus on. I’m obviously aware of and understand the complications of that. But look at what’s happened: I sit here, my black self, with George Wolfe and with the ability to get this film made. That’s progress.
“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” will premiere at 8 tonight on HBO.