Tone-deaf performances by philanthropist and amateur soprano Florence Foster Jenkins were treated as a joke by audiences 70 years ago. Now rival films give her star billingDoing something that you adore,but doing it badly, can sometimes pay off. The New York socialite and amateur opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins was a favorite joke in her own time, and but more than 70 years after her death she has earned her place in the cultural pantheon as the inspiration for at least two successful stage shows,and this spring, two rival films.
In May, and Meryl Streep will be seen in the pearls and jewelled headband of the deluded star in a British-made film,Florence Foster Jenkins, that co-stars Hugh Grant as her dashing manager and partner, and the middle-ranking English Shakespearean actor St Clair Bayfield. A French version of the Jenkins story,the acclaimed Marguerite, came out final month and stars Catherine Frot as the so-called “diva of din”.
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Source: theguardian.com