Baby Reindeer favourite Jessica Gunning to play music icon Mama Cass Elliot in new biopic
The Mamas & the Papas legend is the latest big name in music to have her story told on the big screen.
The recent music biopic boom appears to be going nowhere any time fast – and Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas is the latest big name star to be confirmed as the subject for an upcoming film.
Baby Reindeer star Jessica Gunning has been cast to play the singer – commonly known as Mama Cass – with the film being adapted from her son Owen Elliot-Kugell’s memoir by screenwriter Emma Forrest. No director is currently attached.
The project will reportedly be focusing on Elliot's "life, legacy and music" but will not be serving as a biopic of her '60s folk rock act the Mamas & the Papas, famous for hits including their iconic recording of California Dreamin' and for being a major part of the counter-cultural movement of that decade.
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Although it was her work with the band that was most famous, Elliot also embarked on a solo career afterwards, releasing five albums and scoring hits with Make Your Own Kind of Music and Dream a Little Dream of Me.
She passed away at the age of just 32 in 1968 after suffering a heart attack and was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
The film – which is being titled My Mama Cass – will also apparently detail Elliot-Kugell’s attempts to dispel a longstanding rumour that his mother's death had come after she choked on a ham sandwich.
Interestingly, the film is being produced by Veritas Entertainment, one of the companies behind Oscar-nominated Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown – which of course covered a similar era in American folk music.
Cass Elliott follows a number of musical icons including Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston in having her story told on the big screen in recent years – while Michael Jackson film Michael and Sam Mendes's ambitious Beatles project are among the other examples in the pipeline.
Gunning is best known for her breakout, award-winning turn as Martha in 2024 Netflix hit Baby Reindeer, while she's also appeared in Back and The Outlaws and has roles in upcoming films The Christophers and The Magic Faraway Tree.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
