Alicia Keys will make her film debut in a Halle Berry-produced biopic about piano prodigy Philippa Schuyler, her publicist said Thursday.
The yet untitled film details the life of Schuyler, the only child of George Schuyler, a renowned black journalist and author, and Josephine Cogdell, a white artist and writer.
Born in 1939, Schuyler was a child prodigy who played at Carnegie Hall and around the world. But she encountered racism as she grew older, and had trouble finding acceptance. She later became a journalist and was killed in 1967 in a plane crash in Vietnam.
The rights to the film are owned by Berry, and the Academy Award-winning actress will produce the film along with Marc Platt, who produced the Tony-nominated Broadway show “Wicked” and the Reese Witherspoon “Legally Blonde” movies, according to Keys’ publicist Samantha Tillman.
Like Schuyler, Keys’ mother is white and her father is black, and she is a classically trained pianist.
Keys’ 2001 debut album, “Songs In A Minor,” sold more than 5 million copies and won the R&B singer five Grammys. Her follow-up, “The Diary of Alicia Keys,” is nearing 3 million copies sold.