Product Description
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"Exquisite portrait" --The New York Times
The remarkable mother of the legendary statesman
A luminous Lee Remick stars as the mother of Sir Winston
Churchill in this award-winning British miniseries seen on PBS.
Written by playwright Julian Mitchell, who drew on private
letters and papers from the Churchill family, it’s a captivating
portrait of a spirited American woman. Follow Jennie through her
extraordinary life, from her first meeting with Lord Randolph
Churchill (Ronald Pickup, Fortunes of War, Behaving Badly) at the
young age of 19 through their whirlwind marriage, Winston’s
youth, a feud with the Prince of Wales, exile in Ireland,
Randolph’s death, and two more marriages: the first to a man the
same age as her son, the second to one even younger!
For her effervescent performance, O® and Tony Award® nominee
Lee Remick (Days of Wine and Roses, The Omen) won the best
actress Golden Globe and BAFTA Award, as well as an Emmy®
nomination. Filmed on location in family homes including Blenheim
Palace, the series also stars Warren Clarke (Dalziel and Pascoe)
as Winston, Christopher Cazenove (The Duchess of Duke Street),
Siân Phillips (I, Claudius), and Jeremy Brett (The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes) as Count Kinsky, Lady Jennie’s great love.
.com
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Jennie, the 1974 miniseries concerning Lady Randolph Churchill's
full, adventurous life, illustrates the phrase "Behind every
great man is a great woman" by showing how much the Victorian
women of Lady Randolph's generation did to encourage the future
possibility of female politicians. This seven-episode biopic
drama opens in Paris, 1873, as Jennie Jerome (played by Lee
Remick) meets the fiery Lord Randolph Churchill (Ronald Pickup)
and marries him at age 19. Episode 2, "Lady Randolph," is devoted
to showing the manners Jennie develops at the Churchill estate,
Blenheim Palace, that inform her navigation of political
aristocracy throughout the series. Also crucial in this early
episode is the birth of her son, Winston Churchill (Warren
Clarke), as one begins to see how his worldview is formed through
the lens of his strong mother's eyes. The first two episodes look
like a Cinderella story, with the smart, brutally honest Jennie
leaving her more superficial, or at least conservative, mother
and sister, Mrs. Jerome (Helen Horton) and Clara (Linda Liles),
behind to follow her ambitions to become a self-procled
political wife. Yet the series overall elucidates how limited a
woman of her stature really is in Victorian society, where women
ultimately cannot become politicians themselves. At best, as
episode 4, "Triumph and Tragedy," unfolds midway through this
long tale, Jennie's unbridled desires will be channeled through
her many love affairs and through cultural output such as the
plays and literary magazines she writes and edits in episodes 5
and 6.
Lady Randolph's astute political views are developed chiefly in
the first half of the series, as she watches dramas play out
among royal family members throughout the British Isles. Her
husband, whose tempestuous revolutionary attitude becomes his
ultimate downfall, embraces conflict with Edward, Prince of Wales
(Thorley Waters), and the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel
Kempson and Cyril Luckham), among others. While Jennie despises
the tempered, old-fashioned views that George and Gwendoline
Churchill (Ciaran Madden and John Westbrook) try to share with
their son and his passionate wife, by episode 5, "A Perfect
Darling," she begins to understand that temperance has its place
in British society. Jennie does much to share an American
perspective on England, explaining what will become Winston's
brave, internationally respected position in World War II. While
this series dedicates many scenes to Jennie's loves after
Randolph, Count Karel Kinsky (Jeremy Brett) and George
Cornwallis-West (Christopher Cazenove), the real story is about
the woman herself, and her resilience bolstered by her truest
ally, her younger sister Leonie (Barbara Perkins). By episode 7,
"A Past and a Future," as the war rages on and Jennie gains
hind on her past, one can really appreciate how a woman in
her day and age worked within society's confines while never
letting go of youth and aspiration. --Trinie Dalton