Jessica Lange Set To Star In 'The Big Valley' Film

According to Variety, Two-time Oscar winner Jessica Lange is set to star in film of The Big Valley. Lange will play Victoria Barkley, the widowed matriarch of the wealthy, influential Barkley family living in 19th century Stockton in California's central valley, a role created by Barbara Stanwyck.

The film is an adaptation of the 1965 ABC television series created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman, and has a script by Daniel Adams, who will also direct the picture. The Big Valley will be produced by Straw Weisman and Steven Brandman, and will be executive produced by Edelman's daughter, Kate Edelman Johnson. The film will start shooting this July in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Lange most recently garnered critical acclaim as Edith Bouvier Beale in the HBO film Grey Gardens, a role for which she won the 2009 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries Or a Movie. She has won two Oscars for her performances in Tootsie and Blue Sky, in addition to her innumerable other screen credits. She made her Broadway debut in 1992, playing Blanche in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. Lange was last seen on Broadway in The Glass Menagerie.

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