Baker, at Last

After at least a decade’s worth of announcements about various plans to bring the story of sultry songstress Josephine Baker to the screen, a Baker project finally appears close to production. Current plans call for a March filming start on HBO’s yet-untitled Baker saga, with Irene Cara widely rumored to star.

Brian Gibson, who just picked up an ACE Award for his Simon Wiesenthal biopic for HBO, “Murderers Among Us,” will direct from a script by Ron Hutchinson, who won an ACE for the HBO film “Dead Man Out” and an earlier Emmy for “Murderers.”

Meanwhile, Orion Pictures has dropped a proposed Baker movie. So has producer Allan Carr, who at one time aimed to bring Baker to big-screen life in the form of Diana Ross.

The HBO movie will detail Baker’s story from 1925 to her death in 1976.