The real golden girls
-- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/27/2000
Mama said "marry rich", and they did just that. Babe Mortimer Paley, Betsey Roosevelt Whitney and Minnie Astor Fosburgh were the Cushing Sisters, daughters of a prominent Boston surgeon, and they're focus of a film now in development at Lifetime Television.
Rita Wilson, who worked with Lifetime on last year's The Invisible Child, was a catalyst for the project's launch. "Rita became fascinated with the Cushing sisters and did extensive research before pitching it to us," said Lifetime VP of Original Movies Laurette Hayden. "It is a sweeping piece. Their story covers the '40s, '50s and '60s in New York."
Wilson has her heart set on playing Babe Paley, who wed CBS czar William S. Paley in 1947 after her divorce from a wealthy socialite. Following her marriage to the high-profile Paley, she was in the media spotlight, and her personal taste was applauded and imitated by influential fashionistas, socialites and wannabes.
Wilson is executive-producing, along with Michael Besman( Bounce). The Cushing Sisters debuts on Lifetime in 2001.
Napoleon's a pastry
In recognition of her TV cooking show which helped revolutionize French food in the U.S., Julia Child was awarded the Légion d'Honneur, France's highest honor. Her show, The French Chef, which debuted in 1963, made her an instant celebrity, and her wit and insouciance took the fear out of preparing French delicacies. Or maybe just eating them.
The award, created by Napoleon in 1802, was presented to Child in Boston. Among other Americans so honored are Gregory Peck and ... Jerry Lewis, which puts her in kind of good company.
