Al Pacino to play lead in Jack Kevorkian biopic
By ANIWednesday, May 27, 2009
WASHINGTON - Al Pacino is set to play Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a former pathologist most noted for publicly championing a terminal patient’s right to die, in an HBO biopic.
The acting legend will star in the Barry Levinson project, which concentrates on Kevorkian’s construction of his infamous “Mercy Machine” and his first assisted suicide in the early 1990s.
Kevorkian, who claimed to have assisted at least 130 patients to meet their end and famously said that “dying is not a crime”, served eight years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence for second-degree murder, reports Variety magazine.
The 80-year-old, who was later released on parole in 2007 due to good behaviour, also made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in Michigan.
Adam Mazer has inked the script for the production based on the medic, dubbed Dr. Death by the media, while Levinson, Steve Lee Jones, Lydia Dean Pilcher and Glenn Rigberg will play will executive producers. (ANI)
