Tony winner Annaleigh Ashford (You Can’t Take It With You) will star as Oscar-winning actress Judy Holliday in the upcoming biopic Smart Blonde, Deadline has confirmed.
Ashford recently appeared in American Crime Story: Versace and previously starred Showtime’s Masters of Sex. Her upcoming projects include Second Act, A Rainy Day in New York, American Reject, and Bad Education starring alongside Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney, and Alex Wolff.
Smart Blonde will focus on Holliday, a nightclub singer who in her early acting career in the 1940s fought back against the overt sexual advances of studio mogul Darryl F. Zanuck during her time as a day player at Fox. She later went on to star on Broadway in Born Yesterday and later won the Best Actress Oscar in the movie adaptation from George Cukor. The actress/singer was eventually blacklisted in Hollywood as a communist for being so outspoken and passed away from breast cancer at the age of 43 in 1965.
Gene Kirkwood (Rocky, The Defiant Ones) is producing the project. Kirkwood said: “Judy Holiday’s story is one for the ages and yet so relatable within the context of today’s headlines.”
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
