A Gloria Steinem Biopic Is Coming, Thanks To Julie Taymor And Sarah Ruhl

Image by Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images

By Talya Zax September 29, 2017

Gloria Steinem, author and feminist activist, has done quite a bit for women. Now, a Jewish woman will bring her story to the big screen.

Tony Award-winning director Julie Taymor, mastermind of the acclaimed Broadway adaptation of “The Lion King,” will direct an adaptation of Steinem’s 2015 memoir “My Life on the Road” for June Pictures, Deadline reported this week. The film’s screenplay will be penned by two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl.

Steinem lauded the pairing, as well as the involvement of Lynn Hendee, who will join Taymor and June Pictures’s Alex Saks and Andrew Duncan as a producer. “I can’t imagine anyone more magical than Julie Taymor — or more understanding than Lynn Hendee and Sarah Ruhl,” she told Deadline. “So now that we are on this journey together, I hope and believe the result will encourage many more travelers — especially women in all our diverse realities — to tell our own stories.”

Hendee previously collaborated with Taymor on a 2010 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and a filmed version of Taymor’s 2014 theatrical staging of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Taymor told Deadline that “My Life on the Road” had struck her as “vividly cinematic.”

“From reluctant spokesperson to a beacon of positive change, [Steinem’s] is a singular journey — an American leader who can speak to us all,” she said.

Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO