Netflix has announced a premiere date and a title for its limited series Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, as reported by Deadline. The series, which will bow on Mar. 20 with Octavia Spencer in the title role, is based on the 2001 biography On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by Walker’s great-great-granddaughter A’Lelia Bundles.
Walker was a self-made cosmetic-company owner who was reported to be the wealthiest African-American businesswoman in the United States when she died in 1919, at the age of 51, as well as the most successful self-made businesswoman. She was born Sarah Breedlove in Louisiana in 1867; her professional name came from her six-year marriage to salesman Charles Joseph Walker, who will be played in the Netflix series by Golden Globe-nominated actor Blair Underwood (who also co-authored a series of mystery novels with Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes, beginning with 2007’s Casanegra.)
Spencer won an Academy Award for her role in the 2012 film adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 bestseller, The Help, as well as an Oscar nomination for playing NASA mathematician Dorothy Vaughan in the 2016 movie version of Margot Lee Shetterly’s 2016 nonfiction book, Hidden Figures. She also wrote books in the middle-grade Randi Rhodes: Ninja Detective series in 2013 and 2015, which Kirkus’ reviewer characterized as “Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan meet Nancy Drew.”
The Netflix show will also feature the Emmy-winning Tiffany Haddish, who recently co-starred in The Kitchen, based on a 2014-2015 DC Vertigo comic-book series; she also authored the Kirkus-starred 2017 memoir The Last Black Unicorn.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
