"Exquisite portrait" --The New York Times
The remarkable mother of the legendary statesman
A luminous Lee Remick stars as the mother of Sir Winston Churchill in this award-winning British miniseries seen on PBS. Written by playwright Julian Mitchell, who drew on private letters and papers from the Churchill family, it’s a captivating portrait of a spirited American woman. Follow Jennie through her extraordinary life, from her first meeting with Lord Randolph Churchill (Ronald Pickup, Fortunes of War, Behaving Badly) at the young age of 19 through their whirlwind marriage, Winston’s youth, a feud with the Prince of Wales, exile in Ireland, Randolph’s death, and two more marriages: the first to a man the same age as her son, the second to one even younger!
For her effervescent performance, Oscar® and Tony Award® nominee Lee Remick (Days of Wine and Roses, The Omen) won the best actress Golden Globe and BAFTA Award, as well as an Emmy® nomination. Filmed on location in family homes including Blenheim Palace, the series also stars Warren Clarke (Dalziel and Pascoe) as Winston, Christopher Cazenove (The Duchess of Duke Street), Siân Phillips (I, Claudius), and Jeremy Brett (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) as Count Kinsky, Lady Jennie’s great love.
Jennie, the 1974 miniseries concerning Lady Randolph Churchill's full, adventurous life, illustrates the phrase "Behind every great man is a great woman" by showing how much the Victorian women of Lady Randolph's generation did to encourage the future possibility of female politicians. This seven-episode biopic drama opens in Paris, 1873, as Jennie Jerome (played by Lee Remick) meets the fiery Lord Randolph Churchill (Ronald Pickup) and marries him at age 19. Episode 2, "Lady Randolph," is devoted to showing the manners Jennie develops at the Churchill estate, Blenheim Palace, that inform her navigation of political aristocracy throughout the series. Also crucial in this early episode is the birth of her son, Winston Churchill (Warren Clarke), as one begins to see how his worldview is formed through the lens of his strong mother's eyes. The first two episodes look like a Cinderella story, with the smart, brutally honest Jennie leaving her more superficial, or at least conservative, mother and sister, Mrs. Jerome (Helen Horton) and Clara (Linda Liles), behind to follow her ambitions to become a self-proclaimed political wife. Yet the series overall elucidates how limited a woman of her stature really is in Victorian society, where women ultimately cannot become politicians themselves. At best, as episode 4, "Triumph and Tragedy," unfolds midway through this long tale, Jennie's unbridled desires will be channeled through her many love affairs and through cultural output such as the plays and literary magazines she writes and edits in episodes 5 and 6.
Lady Randolph's astute political views are developed chiefly in the first half of the series, as she watches dramas play out among royal family members throughout the British Isles. Her husband, whose tempestuous revolutionary attitude becomes his ultimate downfall, embraces conflict with Edward, Prince of Wales (Thorley Waters), and the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Kempson and Cyril Luckham), among others. While Jennie despises the tempered, old-fashioned views that George and Gwendoline Churchill (Ciaran Madden and John Westbrook) try to share with their son and his passionate wife, by episode 5, "A Perfect Darling," she begins to understand that temperance has its place in British society. Jennie does much to share an American perspective on England, explaining what will become Winston's brave, internationally respected position in World War II. While this series dedicates many scenes to Jennie's loves after Randolph, Count Karel Kinsky (Jeremy Brett) and George Cornwallis-West (Christopher Cazenove), the real story is about the woman herself, and her resilience bolstered by her truest ally, her younger sister Leonie (Barbara Perkins). By episode 7, "A Past and a Future," as the war rages on and Jennie gains hindsight on her past, one can really appreciate how a woman in her day and age worked within society's confines while never letting go of youth and aspiration. --Trinie Dalton