Before there were WWE Divas, there were the women from GLOW. Now, a new show inspired by the same type of show from the 1980s will make its debut on June 23rd on Netflix.
GLOW was created by Liz Flahive (Homeland, Nurse Jackie) and Carly Mensch (Nurse Jackie, Orange Is The New Black) and Orange Is the New Black creator Jenji Kohan. As a huge Orange Is the New Black fan, I’m anxious to see how they handle this show.
The storyline glows as follows (heh):
Ruth Wilder, who is played by Alison Brie, is an out-of-work actress who has a shot at stardom when she’s put into the world of professional wrestling. Ruth also has to compete with a former soap actress who left the business to have a baby and is now back, as well as a B-movie director who can’t make it in Hollywood.
Alison Brie is best known for portraying Annie Edison in the NBC/Yahoo! sitcom Community (2009–2015) and Trudy Campbell in the AMC drama Mad Men (2007–2015). She voices Diane Nguyen on the Netflix animated series BoJack Horseman (2014–present) and has starred in several films, such as Scream 4 (2011), The Five–Year Engagement (2012), The Lego Movie (2014), Get Hard (2015), Sleeping with Other People (2015), and How to Be Single (2016).
The cast also includes Veronica Mars star Chris Lowell, singer Kate Nash, Ellen Wong, Jackie Tohn, Sunita Mani, Kia Stevens, Betty Gilpin and Marco Maron.
This premiere episode of GLOW arrives to Netflix on Friday, June 23.
However, some of you may not realize this isn’t the first go-around with GLOW. Let’s start with the show Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling , also known as GLOW or G.L.O.W., a women’s professional wrestling promotion that began in 1986 and lasted until 1990. The women had more hair than they had wrestling moves, but hey, what do I know about television or wrestling? Ursula Hayden who portrayed Babe, the Farmers Daughter on the original 80s G.L.O.W. Television Series, is the owner since 2001 of the organization G.L.O.W. – The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.
Then, of course, is the documentary film entitled GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling that was completed in 2011. Directed by Brett Whitcomb and written by Bradford Thomason, the movie premiered at the Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival.
On the GLOW website, https://www.gorgeousladiesofwrestling.com, you can purchase DVDs and other merchandise.
GLOW was called ‘weird’ and I definitely agree. Granted, someone wanted to give women their equal side of professional wrestling, but it was soooooo cheesy that it was almost embarrassing. The good news is that today’s WWE women wrestlers have dropped, except for the show, the moniker Divas from their title and they are taken more seriously as athletes who have put on one hell of a show.
Of course, when the Netflix show debuts I’ll take a look at it and report back here. I’m guessing it’s more of a parody, with hopefully quality comedy, than anything else.
Fighting With My Family
I’m a little more excited about the movie Fighting With My Family, a project by Stephen Merchant (The Office, Hello Ladies) and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Vince Vaughn (Wedding Crashers) will portray an ’80s star in the Stephen Merchant film, based on the life of WWE star Paige and her family of professional wrestlers. The movie will be based on the British documentary, The Wrestlers: Fighting With My Family.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, MGM bought worldwide rights to the project out of Berlin for a notable $17.5 million.
Stephen Merchant (The Office, Hello Ladies) wrote and will direct and executive produce the film. Seven Bucks Productions’ Johnson, Dany Garcia and Hiram Garcia will executive produce, while Kevin Misher of Misher Films will produce alongside WWE Studios president Michael Luisi.
In case you were curious, yes the WWE Studios will co-finance the film with Film4. The film has already started principal photography this month in Los Angeles and London.
The Hollywood Reporter also said that Vaughn’s upcoming projects also include Roland Joffe’s drama The Forgiven and two S. Craig Zahler films, police brutality movie Dragged Across Concrete and crime thriller Brawl in Cell Block 99. He is repped by WME.
