[Dixielandjazz] Louis Armstrong biopic - Los Angeles Times, September 3, 2013

[Robert Ringwald]

After 'The Butler,' Could Louis Armstrong Be Far Behind for Whitaker?
by Steven Zeitchik
Los Angeles Times, September 3, 2013
Maybe it's the ongoing success of "Lee Daniels' The Butler," or perhaps just the
start of soulful autumnal nights, but something has put us in a jazzy, Louis Armstrong
kind of mood.
All of which is enough to make one wonder if "Something Wonderful," a long-gestating
movie about Louis Armstrong from "Butler" star Forest Whitaker, still has a shot
of getting off the ground.
The man at the controls says it does.
Whitaker tells The Times that he'd still like to direct and act in the independent
production, and that he's been working to develop the script with the veteran screenwriter
Ron Bass ("Rain Man," "The Joy Luck Club").
Fittingly for a man who has played in some unconventional biopics -- "The Butler,"
after all, is less a narrow depiction of its title character as it is a chronicling
of racial politics -- the film won't follow the traditional cradle-to-grave path.
"I'm not telling the story like a biopic," Whitaker said. "I'm telling it more like
a myth, where it's several points of view at the same time, the point of view of
Louis and the point of view of a kid."
Armstrong, Whitaker noted, had a mentally challenged adoptive son, and Whitaker says
the movie could use his point of view to illuminate the jazz legend. "It will be
through each of their eyes, and then it will kind of merge," said Whitaker, who in
addition to his prolific acting career has made forays into directing with movies
such as "Waiting to Exhale" and "Hope Floats," the former also with Bass.
Whitaker will have a busy few months ahead. He has plenty of campaigning to do on
"The Butler," for which his Cecil Gaines role has generated best actor Oscar talk.
And early in the new year he's hoping to star as Desmond Tutu in Roland Joffe's "The
Archbishop and the Antichrist," a movie about the unlikely relationship between the
Nobel Peace Prize winner and a mass murderer.
Whitaker, who is known for playing real-life characters -- early in his career he
played Charlie Parker, and he of course won an Oscar for playing Idi Amin -- says
he thinks there is something inspirational about the Armstrong-inspired tale.
"I want to see the spirit of him in this movie," Whitaker said. "I want you to walk
out of the theater singing, having just seen that Louis went to the store and 5-year
olds start singing 'It's a Wonderful World,' and everyone in the whole community
started singing with him, even the horses."
Whitaker added, "It's about him bringing a family together, the family of man."
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-Bob Ringwald K6YBV
www.ringwald.com
916/ 806-9551

First you forget names,
then you forget faces.
Then you forget to pull up your zipper...
it's worse when you forget to pull it down.