Netflix has announced that Girls’ Trip star Tiffany Haddish, and Carmen Ejogo (Selma) along with Golden Globe nominee Blair Underwood (L.A. Law, When They See Us), Garrett Morris (2 Broke Girls), and Kevin Carroll (The Leftovers) will star in the upcoming limited series Madam C.J. Walker. Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water, The Help) will star in the series which is expected to arrive in 2020.
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Haddish, Ejogo, Underwood, Morris and Carroll are set to portray the roles of Lelia, Addie, Chares James Walker, Cleophus and Ransom, respectively. Their official character descriptions read as follows:
Lelia – the smart and feisty daughter of Sarah Breedlove and her late first husband. Raised by her single, hard-working mother, she is eager to be independent. After falling in love and marrying the feckless John Robinson, she frequently finds herself coming to her husband’s defenses.
Addie – a hairstylist and former friend of Sarah Breedlove. She is a savvy business woman herself, who parlays her good looks and social standing into a profitable African American hair care business. Fiercely competitive, when she quickly dismisses Sarah’s ambitions to be one of her sales women, charting a course to become Sarah’s nemesis and rival.
Chares James Walker – Sarah’s husband. He’s incredibly supportive and encouraging of his wife’s hair product business, which he helps her run. CJ has a way of calming Sarah down and soothing her worries, but he grows concerned about her increasing stress over the ups and downs of her business.
Cleophus – CJ’s father, and a former slave who comes to live with CJ and Sarah. He gets along well with Sarah and helps in her hair product business.
Ransom – a Pullman porter whose many degrees include law and patents from Columbia University. When he agrees to help Sarah with her hair product patents and becomes the company lawyer, he does his best to pull her back from what he feels is a risky expansion and efforts.
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This is the untold and highly irreverent story of black hair care pioneer and mogul Sarah Breedlove a.k.a Madam C.J. Walker and how she overcame hostile turn-of-the-century America, epic rivalries, tumultuous marriages and some trifling family to become America’s first black, self-made female millionaire. The story will be based on the biography On Her Own Ground by A’Lelia Bundles, Madam C.J. Walker’s great-great-granddaughter.
Madam C.J. Walker is four-part limited series will be penned by creator Nicole Asher. It will be executive produced by Octavia Spencer, Kasi Lemmons, LeBron James, Maverick Carter and Jamal Henderson of SpringHill Entertainment, and Mark Holder and Christine Holder from Zero Gravity. The miniseries’ first episode will be directed by Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou, Talk to Me) with Janine Sherman Barrois (Criminal Minds, Claws) and Elle Johnson serving as the series’ showrunners
(Photo Credits: Getty Images)
