Women's Biographies on Film

Inspired by a post on a Turner Classic Movies Facebook fan group that noted it's Women's History Month and asked for readers to send in their favorite costumes worn by women(!), I started coming up with this list of women who have been portrayed in film instead, and it's quite an impressive one: 

Greta Garbo lead the way in Queen Christina (1933). Just the way she runs up the steps for her entrance hooked me. And Katharine Hepburn was a fine Mary of Scotland in 1936. 

Greer Garson played orphans' advocate Edna Gladney in Blossoms in the Dust (1941) and Marie Curie Madame Curie (1943), a role played by Rosamund Pike in the 2019 film Radioactive. Garson was Oscar-nominated for playing Eleanor Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello (1960); Jean Stapleton played the role in the 1982 TV movie Eleanor, First Lady of the World. 

Bette Davis portrayed Queen Elizabeth I in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Jean Simmons played the young Queen in Young Bess (1953), as Cate Blanchett did (more realistically) in Elizabeth (1998).

Deborah Kerr starred in a fictionalized account of governess Anna Leonowens in The King and I (1956).  In 1959, The Diary of Anne Frank premiered; Shelly Winters donated the Supporting Actress Oscar she won for the film to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. Susan Hayward won an Oscar for her portrayal of Barbara Graham in I Want to Live. (Jazz, and marijuana, are blamed.) Patty Duke was named Best Supporting Actress for playing Helen Keller in A Miracle Worker (1962).

Cleopatra (1963) starred Elizabeth Taylor, the first actress to make a million dollars for a role. (The Queen of Egypt was also portrayed as smoking something in the 2005/07 HBO series Rome.) Debbie Reynolds played The Unsinkable Molly Brown in 1964; Kathy Bates played the role in Titanic (1997).  In 1965, Julie Andrews played a version of Maria von Trapp (without the yodel) in The Sound of Music.

Women's History Month 2026 - Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future

The theme of this year's Women's History Month is “Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future,” encompassing "financial sustainability, community resilience, leadership succession, and intergenerational equity." 

"Whether developing green technologies, advancing economic justice, strengthening education systems, or building civic power – women are designing blueprints for sustainable transformation," says the National Women's History Foundation. "This theme affirms that shaping a sustainable future means fostering systems that support both people and the planet." 

The cannabis, psychedelics and environmental movements have many women to honor who have advanced sustainability. 

One is Tina Gordon of Moon Made Farms, in Southern Humboldt, California. In her sustainably grown garden, Gordon incorporates "aspects of nature, native soil, and on-site composting, we introduce forest and plant material to our gardens to ensure the best and healthiest product. We want to encourage the genetics, and ultimately epigenetics of the plant to carry through an expression of this unique geographic environment."

Sophia Buggs—also known as Lady Buggs—is an urban farmer, medicine woman, and community leader in Youngstown, Ohio. Through stories, blessings, and reflections, she explores themes of ancestral connection, Indigenous practices, food justice, and the challenges and joys of negotiating community partnerships. Her talk at the Women's Visionary Congress 2023 is both a celebration of cultural heritage and a call to honor the unseen forces and generational wisdom that guide us toward collective healing and empowerment. 

Winona LaDuke (pictured), the Native American activist who ran for Vice President on Ralph Nader's ticket in 1996 and 2000, is growing hemp and other crops in Osage, MN, where she operates a hemp market store and coffee shop. "I want to scale up and join the 400,000 other horse powered farming operations in North America, understanding the sacred relationship between life, power and the future," LaDuke writes. "I would like to live well, I am interested in decoupling food and hemp from fossil fuels, and I am also interested in the quality of life which small-scale farming creates." 

Paul McCartney: Man on the Run

The new Amazon Prime documentary, "Paul McCartney: Man on the Run" charts McCartney's marijuana arrests and their affect on his music, and life. 

Through archival film footage and interviews, the film follows McCartney's musical journey, starting with the breakup The Beatles. Criticized for putting out apolitical albums of what he later called (unapologetically) "silly love songs" with his band Wings—featuring his wife Linda on keyboards—the band and Paul's songwriting gained an edge when he faced jail time for growing five marijuana plants on their family farm in March 1973. 

According to a TV interviewer in the film, it was said in court that, "McCartney had a considerable interest in horticulture, and many of his fans sent him seeds to grow. The cannabis seeds, it was said, came to him in such a way."  He admitted he had knowingly growing the plants, but claimed he didn't know what they were. 

The film does not mention the statement McCartney made in court regarding cannabis's legal status. “I feel that there should be legislation on the use of cannabis," he said. "Drink is a much worse drug to my mind than cannabis.” 

Later that year, Wings hit their stride with the release of their album "Band on the Run." The album was recorded in Nigera, where McCartney said he smoked the strongest weed he ever had in an interview with Marc Maron where he noted that "for the creative process it was required."