As a singer, Tony Bennett could make an audience laugh, cheer and gasp with wonder. But when the great crooner heard that Amy Winehouse had died just months after they recorded together, he could only weep.
He described her death as “one of the saddest things that ever happened in [his] life” – a remark that underscored the extraordinary bond the two had forged when they came together at Abbey Road Studios in March 2011 to cover the 1930s jazz standard “Body and Soul” for his Duets II album.
In her triumphs and her struggles, he also perhaps caught reflections of his younger self. He and Winehouse shared an ability to inhabit a piece of music so utterly that, when you heard them sing, it was as if you were encountering the song for the first time. They took something old, even staid, and made it brand new.
But Bennett also understood they each had demons. Though he had the fuddy image of an elder statesman in his later years, in the 70s, drugs had driven him to the brink. Once, he had almost gone over the edge when he overdosed on cocaine in 1979, and his second wife, Sandra Grant, had found him unconscious.
Their Abbey Road duet is believed to have been Winehouse’s final recording. It was captured on film and is a searing moment in Asif Kapadia’s 2015 documentary Amy. Winehouse, in a dark place amid spiralling substance addiction, is nervous – and though Bennett does his best to set her at ease, she is visibly in awe of him. (INews)
It’s only been few months since Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black began filming in London, but the backlash has already come thick and fast. Over the weekend, pictures of Marisa Abela and Eddie Marsan in character as Amy and her father, Mitch Winehouse, made their way on to Twitter. The reaction was one of pure vitriol, with one particularly viral tweet describing the images of Abela, looking cartoonishly distraught in a halloween costume-level approximation of Winehouse’s trademark beehive, as “fucking revolting”: 34,000 likes and 3,500 quote tweets seemed to agree with the sentiment. (The Guardian)
Amy Winehouse Biopic: First scenes from Marisa Abela's film shown in LondonFootage showing Marisa Abela filming for the upcoming Amy Winehouse biopic has emerged online – check it out below.
Last year it was announced that Sam Taylor-Johnson would direct an Amy Winehouse biopic titled Back to Black. Now the first image has been released of Marisa Abela in the title role, wearing the late singer’s trademark black beehive and gold hoop earrings.
amy winehouse movie being filmed outside my house today. absolute oscar award winning acting here. pic.twitter.com/txxYz8nBbR
— Rich Thane (@richthane) January 19, 2023
Back to Black will chronicle Winehouse’s time living in London in the early 00s and her rise to fame. The film was written by the Manchester-born screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh, who wrote the script for Taylor-Johnson’s 2009 John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, and unlike the Oscar-winning 2015 documentary Amy, Back to Black has been authorised by the Amy Winehouse estate.
Abela was born in Brighton in 1996, to parents who worked in the film industry. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made her debut in 2020 as one of the leads in the BBC/HBO finance drama Industry.
Amy Winehouse's 'troubled life' to be explored in eight-part TV series
The turbulent life of ‘Back to Black’ singer Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011 aged just 27, is to be turned into an eight-part drama.
The series will chart Winehouse's troubled relationships, her drug and alcohol addictions and the distinctive voice and songwriting talent which made her a huge success.
The series will also explore her relationships with her family, including her father Mitch. (Dailymail reports)
Amy Winehouse died in 2011 aged just 27 from a drink and drugs overdose -
The drama is based on bestseller book Saving Amy by author Daphne Barak -
It will explore her addictions, her success and intense familial relationships -
Book is based on 40 hours of footage, photographs and interviews of the sing -
The rights for the book have been bought by Halcyon Studio, which aims to bring it to life as a scripted TV series with veteran British writer and producer Mal Young, who has worked on dramas such as Doctor Who, Casualty and Holby City.
The book, which was translated into half a dozen languages, was based on the six months that filmmaker Ms Barak and producer Erbil Gunasti spent with the singer and her family in London, Switzerland and St Lucia.
Amy spent eight months on the Caribbean island to write and record her third album, which was never released, in 2009.
