Rosemary Kennedy movie to star Elisabeth Moss in title role
The tragic life of the sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy will be portrayed in a new movie starring Elisabeth Moss.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Mad Men” star will play the title role of Rosemary Kennedy in a film based on letters the forgotten Kennedy sister left her family throughout the years she spent in a home in Wisconsin. “La La Land” actress Emma Stone was originally named to play Kennedy in “A Letter From Rosemary Kennedy.”
Elisabeth Moss will play Rosemary Kennedy. Image: WikiCommons.
While her brothers and sisters went on to have dazzling careers under the guidance of their father Joe Kennedy, Rosemary Kennedy had an intellectual disability from birth, believed to have been caused by a lack of oxygen when a nurse kept her in the birth canal while waiting for a doctor to carry out the delivery.
Rebellious and prone to “mood swings,” the patriarchal Kennedy was believed to be concerned about the effect Rosemary would have on the family and so without consulting her mother, he ordered a lobotomy to be carried out on his daughter when she was just 23 years old.
Read more: The sad and dreadful life of Rosemary Kennedy
Picture perfect Kennedy family portrait.
The procedure went wrong, however, leaving Rosemary unable to walk and talk. She was placed in a psychiatric facility and later into a residential home in Wisconsin where she lived until her death aged 86 in 2005. The Kennedy family has rarely spoken about her and it’s believed that it could have been as long as 20 years before she saw any members of her family again when she was first placed into a home after the lobotomy.
Read more: Jackie Kennedy's Doctor Feelgood shot her up before she met Queen
She wished to connect with them, however, and the new movie will be based on letters she penned in hoping to reestablish a relationship with her family.
“The movies about the Kennedy family are deservedly stormy affairs, but here’s a story about the storms within all of us,” director Ritesh Batra told Variety.
A release date for the movie is yet unknown.
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