EXCLUSIVE: Eagle Eye Drama has acquired the rights to The Great Dictator, Matthew Sweet‘s biography of the flamboyant and eccentric late Dame Barbara Cartland.
Historian, novelist and screenwriter Sweet’s book tells the story of author known as ‘The Queen of Romance’ Cartland, who was one of the UK’s most recognizable figures across the 20th century.
She was famous for dressing in pink and taking her Pekinese dogs with her wherever she went. Born in 1901, Cartland was a fixture of British high society, rubbing shoulders with press barons, politicians, the aristocracy and the Royal Family, as step-grandmother to Princess Diana.
Bookish co-writer Sweet’s book, published this month by Hodder & Stoughton, is the result of years of research into her life. It has been positively reviewed by the likes of The Guardian, The Times and documentarian Louis Theroux, and ITV Studios-owned Eagle Eye will now look to adapt the story of the ‘woman in pink’, whose romance novels sold close to a billion copies in 38 languages.
Eagle Eye Drama CEO Walter Iuzzolino said: “Matthew Sweet gained unparalleled access to the Cartland family archives, and what he has uncovered is a story more compelling and unbelievable than her most outlandish plots, which will provide a wonderful bedrock to build an unmissable scripted series.”
Eagle Eye CCO Jo McGrath added that Cartland was the third-biggest selling author of all time, behind only William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, adding she would be a “gift of a role for a great actress.”
“Known for her outlandish pink chiffon clothes and thick Meltonian black shoe cream mascara, she is a figure who has been loved and scorned in equal measure,” said McGrath. “She was a ferocious champion of romantic love with a less than idyllic and rather scandalous love life of her own.
“A friend of Winston Churchill, she dined with Margaret Thatcher – to whom she prescribed alternative remedies and oxygen supplements – and of course the step-grandmother to Princess Diana, who loved her books as a young woman.”
Sweet, whose series Bookish is produced through Eagle Eye, said: “I feel like I’ve been caught up in a pink chiffon whirlwind in the last few days, with the reviews and the Baillie Gifford longlist. Now Eagle Eye Drama has acquired the rights to bring The Great Dictator to television. They are the perfect producers and I know they will bring Barbara’s world to life with impeccable style.”
Eagle Eye is arguably best known for Bookish, the light crime series in which Mark Gatiss plays a closeted post-war detective. It was renewed for a third season and festive special last month. The production house also makes Channel 4’s The Couple Next Door and the high-rating Patience and Ben Miller drama Professor T for ITV. It is also adapting ITV’s forthcoming Richard Armitage crime series Winter after secured the rights to the book.
Tom Perrin, Editorial Consultant, Hodder & Stoughton, noted The Great Dictator had been “a runaway success” since publication and had been longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.
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