Film and TV Animator Robert Valley to Direct Feature Biopic AMERICAN ROSE About Broadway Legend Billy Rose
Film and TV animator Robert Valley, best known for directing Pear Cider & Cigarettes and, most recently, two episodes of Love Death & Robots, is taking on a new project. Valley has signed on to direct American Rose, a new project about the life of Billy Rose — a songwriter, Broadway producer, and unwitting activist. The film will tell “the roving true story of Rose, once married to comedian and multi-hyphenate Fanny Brice and producer of Carmen Jones, the first musical on Broadway to feature a cast of all-Black performers.”
“The child of Jewish immigrants from modest means in the Lower East Side tenements of New York, Rose became a shorthand writing champion, a songwriter, and a producer of Broadway shows and massive outdoor spectacles, according to the filmmakers. He was vocal about America’s silence regarding the Holocaust, specifically toward figures from the America First movement, including Joe Kennedy and Charles Lindbergh.
“After his union with Brice, Rose wed Olympic swimmer Eleanor Holm (once dubbed the world’s most beautiful athlete by Time magazine). Consumed by a materialistic pursuit of the American dream, producers said, Rose went on to divorce Holm in one of the messiest public divorces in modern history (dubbed ‘The War of the Roses’ by the tabloids of the day). An accomplished lyricist, Rose also owned venues in Times Square and operated the Ziegfeld Theatre from 1949 through 1955.”
This sounds like an interesting story, and I look forward to seeing what they do with it.
via: Variety