Kelli Garner, star of the short-lived "Pan Am" series, has been cast as Marilyn Monroe for the four-hour Lifetime miniseries "Marilyn," which will premiere in 2015.
The miniseries, based on the book "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe" by Randy Taraborrelli, chronicles the Hollywood bombshell's life as she balances celebrity stardom and a mental illness that she inherited from her mother, who will be
played by Susan Sarandon, according to Deadline.com.
"Marilyn is both the personification of sex, whose first marriage ironically collapses because of her frigidity, and a fragile artist who seeks the approval and protection of men," Lifetime said in a statement.
"But after tumultuous marriages with Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, she realizes she has the strength to stand on her own. She becomes the face and voice of an era, yet wants most of all to be someone's mother and someone's little girl. She's the Marilyn you haven't seen before, the artist who, by masking the truth with an image, gives her greatest performance," the statement continued.
Monroe has been portrayed numerous times on-screen, most recently by Michelle Williams when she earned an Academy Award nomination for the 2011 film
"My Week with Marilyn," according to TV Guide. Garner was most recently seen on the HBO series "Looking."
The Hollywood Reporter attached Academy Award-winner Sarandon to the project earlier this month to play Monroe's mother Gladys, someone the general public knows little about. THR's Lesley Goldberg wrote the miniseries is Sarandon's next step into taking on more television projects.
"Taraborrelli's book is considered the most definitive Monroe biography," Goldberg wrote. "Published in 2010, the title explored the actress/pin-up girl's relationship with her mentally ill mother, her foster mother and her legal guardian as well as Monroe's own mental illness and her relationships with her family and the Kennedys."
"For Sarandon, the casting comes as the 'Dead Man Walking' Oscar winner has been pushing further in to TV."
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