ITV Studios’ Eagle Eye Drama has secured the rights to adapt The Great Dictator, Barbara Cartland’s biography by Matthew Sweet.
The critically acclaimed book was published by Hodder & Stoughton this month and tells the life story of the iconic romance writer.
Eagle Eye Drama CEO Walter Iuzzolino said, ‘Barbara Cartland is one of the most recognizable English public figures of the 20th Century. Born in 1901, Cartland was a fixture of British society for nearly a hundred years, rubbing shoulders with press barons, politicians, the aristocracy, and of course the Royal Family. 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, ‘The third bestselling author in history behind only Shakespeare and Christie, Cartland was an indefatigable wordsmith knocking out 23 books a year. 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. 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. Cartland is a rivetingly complex kaleidoscope of contradictions, a gift of a role for a great actress.”
