The black woman who is responsible for the first-known human cell line will have a movie done about her life starring Oprah Winfrey on HBO.
Henrietta Lacks cells are known today as the HeLa cell line. In 1955, they were the first human cells successfully cloned.
Winfrey will headline HBO Films’ forthcoming project The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the pay cabler announced Monday.
Based on Rebecca Skloot’s nonfiction bestseller of the same name, the project tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her consent, pieces of the tumor that killed her were removed and used for medical exploration and to build a billion-dollar research industry.
The news that Winfrey will headline the film comes six years after she first boarded the project as an executive producer alongside Alan Ball (Six Feet Under, True Blood).
Additionally, Henrietta Lacks’ sons, David Lacks, Jr. and Zakariyya Rahman, and granddaughter Jeri Lacks will serve as consultants.
Oprah will also executive produce the film.
