Here’s a fitting Mother’s Day tribute: A portrait of the woman responsible for some of the greatest research of the 20th and 21st centuries—including polio and in vitro fertilization—will now be featured in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
On Women’s Day, the New York Times published an interactive collection called “Overlooked,” a series of obituaries written for notable figures who are long gone but for myriad reasons were not recognized by the Times when they died. In it, the Times acknowledges that over the years, it has repeatedly neglected to…
On Saturday, HBO aired its original movie The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, an adaptation of the book of the same name. Even if you’ve never read the book (as I haven’t, but am going to) you’ve more than likely heard somebody you know talking about this book, written by Rebecca Skloot, that talks about the woman…
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks premieres April 22 at 8 p.m. ET on HBO, and I’ll be tuned in because it’s that good. I’m not just saying that because I had an otherworldly experience with one of the stars of the film, Oprah Winfrey, this week. It’s honestly worth watching more than once, and yes that’s because…
Who can tell your family’s story? That’s one of the key issues the book and now HBO film, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, raises. It’s one that Henrietta Lacks’ son Lawrence and his son, Ron, have been asking for some time now.
Writers tell stories in hopes that not only are they read but they also come to life. This is what has happened to Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which chronicles the tragic tale of Lacks, a 31-year-old black woman from Clover, Va., whose terminal-cancer diagnosis and undying cells ended…
Earlier this week, journalists were called to a swanky hotel in New York City to sit with the (majority-black) cast and director (George C. Wolfe) of HBO’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. We weren’t given many details—just where to be and at what time. With Oprah Winfrey leading the star-studded cast, we could…
Just in time for the highly anticipated debut of the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, HBO has announced the launch of The HeLa Project, a multimedia exhibition inspired by the film.
The story of Henrietta Lacks and her “immortal” cells is not quite over. Her eldest son, Lawrence Lacks, has come forth requesting compensation from Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University and possibly other institutions for the unauthorized use of the famous cells that prompted decades of medical advances.