TNT has given a straight-to-series order for a new drama titled One Day She’ll Darken, based on the novel One Day She’ll Darken: The Mysterious Beginnings of Fauna Hodel by Fauna Hodel and J R Briamonte.
Patty Jenkins (director of Wonder Woman) is attached to direct the pilot and potentially additional episodes of a project that tells the true story of Fauna Hodel who was given away by her teenage birth mother to a black restroom attendant in a Nevada casino in 1949.
Hodel is white and central to the series, but given the story, there will most certainly be a number of black actors cast in the project, and the themes the project will tackle should be of interest to Shadow and Act readers. Read the following description from the novel’s website and you’ll understand why:
“In 1951, Fauna Hodel, the Caucasian offspring of a prominently social California family, was given away at birth to a young Black woman who worked as a restroom attendant in a Nevada casino. The purpose was to ensure that a Black family raise the baby. In her 16 year old mother’s eyes, Blacks were the far more loving than most everyone she encountered in the white community. To ensure that the child would never return to her emotionally reclusive white family, she made sure her new baby’s birth certificate listed the father as “Negro”. The child, of course, grew up believing that she was of mixed race. She struggled before, during and after civil rights were enacted. Enduring prejudice from both races, she sought out the only person who truly knew where she belonged – her real mother. But after discovering her true identity, she uncovered a family secret even more bizarre than her own – the mysterious world of incest, murder, and powerful forces that have kept this story from being told for more than 20 years.”
The only casting that’s been announced at this time is Chris Pine (who Jenkins directed in this year’s Wonder Woman), as Jay Singletary, a former Marine-turned-hack reporter/paparazzo who was disgraced over his story about Hodel years ago, but now he sees a glimmer of redemption.
Sam Sheridan, author of A Fighter’s Heart and The Disaster Diaries, is attached to write the six-episode limited series which is being produced by Turner’s Studio T, with Jenkins, Michael Sugar (Spotlight), Sheridan and Pine serving as executive producers.
“One Day She’ll Darken is a mind-boggling true mystery with unpredictable twists and turns and edge-of-your-seat chills. Sam Sheridan, an expert storyteller, has delivered scripts that entertain, frighten and tell tales of redemption and a powerful search for identity,” said Sarah Aubrey, executive vice president of original programming for TNT.
Production is set to begin this fall. —
