![]() ![]() Old folks, they didn't talk about nobody wasn't alive. So when journalist Rebecca Skloot calls hoping to write a book about Henrietta, Deborah is jubilant. ![]() She was a passionate, righteous woman struggling against racism and a tangled family history to learn more about the mother who died when she was a child. OPRAH WINFREY: (As Deborah Lacks) For years, it seemed like a dream, not knowing what was going on, not knowing who to go to for understanding - didn't even know how to talk about it.ĭEGGANS: Deborah Lacks is a role that Winfrey seems destined to play. Lacks's daughter Deborah, played in the film by Oprah Winfrey, was particularly wounded by the secrecy. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What makes this sample so unique is that this is the first cell line we have discovered in over 30 years of trying that can survive and reproduce indefinitely.ĭEGGANS: But Lacks's family wasn't told back then that the cells were taken or compensated for them. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS") Researchers in the 1950s took cancer cells from a young black woman, which led to the development of drugs for polio, leukemia and many other illnesses. Here's NPR TV critic Eric Deggans.ĮRIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: HBO's "The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks" begins with a brilliant montage showing the birth of the biomedical industry. The movie is based on a bestselling book, "The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks." It's a true story in which the title character is played by Oprah Winfrey in her first leading role in a TV movie since the 1990s. An HBO film out this weekend works to expose a historic injustice.
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