Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story | |
---|---|
Written by | Ronni Kern [1] |
Directed by | Peter Levin |
Starring | Thora Birch Michael Riley Robert Bockstael Makyla Smith Kelly Lynch |
Composer | Louis Febre |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
Production | |
Producer | Michael Mahoney |
Cinematography | Uta Briesewitz |
Editor | Anita Brandt-Burgoyne |
Running time | 91 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | Lifetime [2] |
Release | April 7, 2003 |
Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story is an American biographical drama television film directed by Peter Levin. [3] The film premiered on Lifetime on April 7, 2003, and received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Made for Television Movie and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for Thora Birch. [4]
Liz Murray is one of two daughters of an extremely dysfunctional Bronx family. Her father watches Jeopardy! and knows all the questions. Their bathtub does not drain, so she has to shower while standing on an overturned bucket, to stay out of the fetid water.
As a young girl, Murray lives with her sister Lisa, their drug-addicted, schizophrenic mother Jean, who has AIDS and is practically blind, and their father Peter, also a drug addict who is intelligent, but also has AIDS, lacks social skills, and is not conscientious. She is removed from the home and placed into the care system as her father cannot take care of her.
At 15, she moves in with her mother, sister, and grandfather, who sexually abused her mother and her aunt. After her grandfather hits her during a fight, Liz runs away with a girl from school named Chris who is being abused at home.
After Jean dies of AIDS, which she contracted from sharing needles during her drug-abusing years, Liz gets a "slap in the face" by her mother's death and begins her work to finish high school, which she amazingly completed in two years, rather than the usual four. She becomes a star student and earns a scholarship to Harvard University through an essay contest sponsored by The New York Times .
Thora Birch is an American actress, producer, and director. She made her feature film debut in 1988 with a starring role in Purple People Eater, for which she received a Young Artist Award for "Best Actress Under Nine Years of Age". Birch rose to prominence as a child star during the 1990s through a string of parts in films, including Paradise (1991), Patriot Games (1992), Hocus Pocus (1993), Monkey Trouble (1994), Now and Then (1995), and Alaska (1996). Her breakthrough into adult-oriented roles came with her portrayal of Jane Burnham in American Beauty (1999), for which she was nominated for that year's BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress.
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Elizabeth Murray is an American memoirist and inspirational speaker who is notable for having been accepted by Harvard University despite being homeless in her high school years. Her life story was chronicled in Lifetime's television film Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story (2003). Murray's memoir Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard, published in 2010 is a New York Times Bestseller.
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