Bruce Beresford directs Nancy Wake story
Bruce Beresford will direct the story of Australian war hero Nancy Wake in an upcoming major feature film called The White Mouse and produced by Peter Glover and Sue Milliken.
The film will be the second bio-pic on Wake’s life, the first, a telemovie called Nancy Wake (True Colours in the US) starring Noni Hazelhurst.
Production is expected in the second half of 2012 for the bio-pic on Wake, the highest decorated woman of WWII. While working with the French Resistance, she commanded 7000 Maquis fighters in preparation for D-Day.
Wake, who passed away in London aged 98 yesterday, Sunday 7 August, was born in New Zealand but moved to Australia at a young age with her family before leading a life fit for cinema.
She would go from Sydney nurse to worldwide journalist via New York, London and Paris to witness the rise of Nazi Germany across Europe.
In Paris she married French industrialist Henri Edmond Fiocca, serving as a British agent, joined the French Resistance garnering the nickname “the White Mouse” and by 1943 was the Gestapo’s most-wanted person.
After the war she was decorated with the George Medal in 1945, the Medaille de la Resistance, three times the Croix de Guerre and the Medal of Freedom from the US.
She ran for Australian federal government seats as a Liberal in 1949, ’51 and ’66.
In 1985 Wake published her autobiography titled The White Mouse which became a best seller. In 2001 Peter Fitzsimons published a biography called Nancy Wake, A Biography Of Our Greatest War Heroine.
Casting and financing is currently underway.
This is exiting news. Australia needs another hero just now, one that was fearless and knew the value of freedom from tyranny. Nancy Wake has all the ingredients to create a highly successful film and Bruce Beresford should do her proud.
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