Lifetime has scheduled Brittany Murphy biopic “The Brittany Murphy Story” to air Saturday, Sept. 6 at 8 p.m., the network announced Tuesday.
Amanda Fuller (“Last Man Standing”) will play the titular actress, while Sherilyn Fenn (“Ray Donovan”) will play her mother, Sharon. The pic is directed by Joe Menendez and written by Peter Hunziker and Cynthia Riddle.
According to the cabler, the two-hour TV movie is “the story of talented young Brittany, her supportive mother Sharon and their determination to turn Brittany into a star in the 1980s and ’90s. Brittany achieves that dream, breaking out in ‘Clueless’ and continuing to do high-profile work in projects such as ‘Girl, Interrupted’ and ‘8 Mile.’ But her desperation for approval and insecurity about her looks makes her personal life a disaster. The men in Brittany’s life come and go, but her mother remains the grounding force in her life. Unlike other stage moms, Sharon was always her daughter’s support system, but that enduring love wasn’t enough to save her sensitive Brittany from the vicissitudes of Hollywood life. Four years after her untimely ‘accidental’ death, actress Brittany Murphy’s name is once again in the press. Her estranged father Angelo is claiming that the forensic evidence indicates that Brittany was deliberately poisoned, and he has his theories about who is to blame. As news reports swirl and Angelo demands that the authorities reopen the investigation, Sharon struggles with being thrust once more into the limelight to talk about her beloved little girl.”
Murphy died in 2009 at the age of 32. While the coroner initially ruled cause of death to be pneumonia and anemia, doubts resurfaced after Murphy’s husband, Simon Monjack, died five months after Murphy under similar circumstances. Sharon Murphy blamed their deaths on toxic mold in the home, while Murphy’s father, Angelo Bertolotti, later claimed that the couple may have died of heavy metal poisoning.
