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Posts tagged as “Robert Teitel”

"Southside With You": 1st Look at Parker Sawyers & Tika Sumpter as a Young Barack & Michelle Obama

By goodblacknews on July 14, 2015
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Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers as Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama in “Southside With You” (photo via deadline.com)

Here is one of the first images from Southside With You, a film inspired by the first date of future First Couple Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.

Written by Richard Tanne, who also is making his directorial debut, the feature takes place in summer 1989 in Chicago, where the young associate Obama (Parker Sawyers) woos his colleague Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) in a romantic dramedy about the couple’s early romantic encounters. The eventful day took them from the Chicago Art Institute to a screening of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing to the eventual first kiss, which occurred outside of an ice cream parlor.

Sawyers recently wrapped the Oliver Stone-directed Snowden opposite Joseph Gordon Levitt and will appear in The Autopsy Of Jane Doe along with Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch. Sumpter stars on OWN’s The Haves And The Have Nots and will appear in Universal’s Ride Along 2 with Kevin Hart and Ice Cube.
IM Global and State Street Pictures are producing the film, with Tanne and Sumpter as producers alongside Glendon Palmer and Robert Teitel. Tracey Bing is executive producing.
article by Amanda N’Duka via deadline.com

"Vampire Diaries" Actress Kat Graham To Star in Tammi Terrell Biopic

By goodblacknews on May 31, 2015
Kat Graham Tammi Terrell 2-shot
(Getty Images/Motown Records)

 The woman who teamed with Marvin Gaye on a string of 1960s Motown hits before dying of a brain tumor at age 24 is getting her own biopic. Tammi Terrell will be played by The Vampire Diaries star Kat Graham, who also is working her debut album with producer Babyface. Maryam Myika Day wrote the untitled project, which marks Graham’s feature debut and is being produced by Robert Teitel, Rose Ganguzza and Hilary Shor. Shooting is set for next year.

The film follows the brief but memorable career of Terrell, who started out as a backup singer in the James Brown Revue before scoring a few minor pop hits as a solo act. But she struck gold after being paired with hit-making singer Gaye in early 1967, a teaming that produced such Motown classics as “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Your Precious Love” and “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing.” In October 1967, Terrell collapsed onstage while performing with Gaye, and doctors diagnosed her with a brain tumor. She continued to record with Gaye and scored a few more solo hits before dying in 1970.

“I immediately connected to Tammi and her story in many ways and have felt the incredible need to tell it,” Graham said. “Tammi Terrell defined passion and soul itself. … Getting lost in the music enabled her to override life’s punishments — for when she sang, she could use the hurt to create greatness and give the world hope that maybe they could overcome their pain as well.”
article by Erik Pedersen via deadline.com