A FILM about Surf Coast-born international opera star Marjorie Lawrence is in production, and the team behind the film hopes the documentary will have its premiere locally.<\/p>\n
Marjorie Lawrence: The World at Her Feet<\/em> features interviews with celebrated Australian conductors Richard Bonynge and Brian Castles-Onion, as well as Ita Buttrose, John Bolton Wood and Richard Wagner Society (VIC) president Miki Oikawa.<\/p>\n Australian International Pictures producer and director Wayne Groom said the feature-length documentary was based on a biography of Lawrence, Wotan\u2019s Daughter<\/em>, by author Richard Davis.<\/p>\n Born in Deans Marsh, Lawrence was well known as a soprano in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly for her performances of Wagnerian operas.<\/p>\n \u201cShe became the most famous Australian woman in the world and yet she has been largely forgotten in our time,\u201d Mr Groom said. \u201cMarjorie graced the opera theatres of urban and regional France in the 1930s, winning widespread acclaim.<\/p>\n \u201cShe performed at the Metropolitan in New York to rave reviews and became friends with President Roosevelt and his wife.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was invited to sing at Buckingham Palace for the Queen and Princess\u2019s Elizabeth and Margaret, and was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government for her services to French music.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 1955, MGM made a movie of her life, Interrupted Melody<\/em> starring Glenn Ford and Eleanor Parker, which won an Academy Award, and the NBC devoted an episode of This Is Your Life<\/em> to Marjorie, which garnered an audience of 60 million.\u201d<\/p>\n