McCartney Times

Oscar-nominated director Bruce Beresford will direct an upcoming biopic focusing on the life of Buddy Holly.

The film, entitled, Clear Lake, is being earmarked by producers to begin work this autumn. The project will also see director Beresford team up with Stuart Benjamin, the producer who earned critical acclaim for his work on Ray, the Ray Charles biopic which was released in 2004.

Beresford, who himself received Oscar nominations for directing Tender Mercies as well as the script for Breaker Morant, has directed films such as Driving Miss Daisy, Double Jeopardy, Mister Johnson and many more.

“I found myself attracted to Clear Lake because the script tells the tragic story of Buddy Holly and his era in fascinating detail and with vivid characterisations,” Beresford told Variety.

He added: “Needless to say, the added plus of all the wonderful music was also a major lure.”

Holly, the pioneering American musician who played a major role in the formation of rock and roll in the mid-1950s, was killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, in 1959 in what has been dubbed ‘The Day the Music Died’.

The crash, which claimed the lives of a 22-year-old Holly, 17-year-old Ritchie Valens and 28-year-old J.P. ‘The Big Bopper’ Richardson, cut short the lives of popular culture’s most promising musical icons.

Read the full story, here.

Source: Bruce Beresford to direct new Buddy Holly biopic ‘Clear Lake’