Wallis Simpson and her course-of-history-changing marriage to King Edward VIII have been explored in projects such as “The Crown” and “W.E.” Now her tale — which is remarkably prescient at the moment, given the plight of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry — will be told in even more detail in an upcoming film. A feature adaptation of Anna Pasternak’s Simpson biography, “The American Duchess: The Real Wallis Simpson,” is in the works at The Gotham Group. Deadline broke the news.
Gotham’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Lee Stollman are producing, and Pasternak is serving as executive producer.
Published last year by Simon & Schuster’s Atria imprint, “The American Duchess” “focuses on Simpson’s beginnings as a divorced American socialite who was not welcomed by 1930s Britain when she entered into a relationship with King Edward VIII,” the source describes. “She became one of the most vilified women of the 20th century, opposition against her so fierce that in order to marry the woman he loved, Edward was forced to surrender the throne. Using fresh insider accounts, the author explored how a warm, intelligent woman was systematically undermined, and how twisted gossip and public distrust have always haunted women who dare to fall for a British royal.”
While Simpson was the subject of much contemporaneous vitriol for being American and divorced — and deigning to enter into a relationship with a royal — recently, she and Edward VIII have also rightly been held accountable for their Nazi sympathies. They traveled to Germany and met with Adolf Hitler in 1937, a part of their lives that was investigated in “The Crown’s” second season.
“Now that our American duchess, Meghan, has moved back to Hollywood, never has it been timelier to consider the fate of the original American duchess, Wallis Simpson,” Pasternak said, referring to Markle and Prince Harry’s recent abdication and move to Los Angeles. “As both could attest, life has always been difficult for women marrying into Britain’s royal family.”
“The American Duchess” is up for the 2020 Wolfson History Prize. The paperback edition arrives April 14.
Pasternak is also the bestselling author of “Princess in Love” and “Lara.” Her work has been featured in Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and other outlets.
