Celebrity News
Joaquin Phoenix resumes career to play Edgar Allen Poe
[HMG] – Unlike Oscar nominated actor Joaquin Phoenix, Edgar Allen Poe is not a name widely known among movie fans. But that insult seems destined to change.
Having apparently ‘retired’ from acting in October last year, the 35-year old actor is returning to films to portray the iconic author in a screen adaptation of a story first found in one of Poe’s less famous books, ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,’ which he published in 1842.
The new film will be based on a novel entitled ‘The Beautiful Cigar Girl’ by Daniel Stashower, which tells the true story of the brutal death of 20-year old tobacco clerk, Mary Rogers.
On July 25th 1841, Mary’s badly-beaten body was found floating in the Hudson in Hoboken, New Jersey. No one was ever charged with her murder, but it was later claimed that Mary was the victim of a back-street abortion gone wrong.
Poe knew Mary well as he’d bought cigars from her many times. Her scandalous death thus raised both his anger and his intense imagination, and a year later his book ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,’ retold the tale, with his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin returning to unravel the case and discover the villain.
The new movie will cover the whole scope of this drama, from Mary’s sad death to the involvement of Poe. And Joaquin has agreed to return to the screen to play the intense but inventive Boston-born author.
But details on the movie are hard to discover — So far, there’s no director or script, and no studio has so far admitted to being involved. But with Joaquin’s name in the mix that will soon come together.
Stay tuned and we’ll keep you informed…
It’s disturbing to see everyone giving Daniel Stashower credit for a book that is not original. There were many books in the 19th century about the murder and Poe (many of them also titled “The Beautiful Cigar Girl”). In the 1970s, two excellent books came out about the Mary Rogers case. One by Raymond Paul called “Who Murdered Mary Rogers” and one is by Amy Srebnick, titled “The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers”. Paul figured out a possible solution to the case that makes a lot of sense. Srebnick brings out some of the feminist implications of the case and the country’s reaction to it. There is also a good graphic novel by Rick Geary called “The Mystery of Mary Rogers” which would make a great film. Stashower just came afterwards and reprinted what was already written.