Trailblazing women journalists have been featured many times in my blog post because they give me inspiration and hope. Many may have been driven by ego, but most are truth-seekers. Molly was such a women. And girl do we need her now!
This week it was announced that the Molly Ivin’s documentary is being shown at this year’s 2019 Sundance Film Festival. With a good dose of political unrest, her words are ringing truer than ever. In the midst of today’s war on journalists, the timing is perfect to let Molly’s voice be heard again. She knew the power of humor was getting people to listen to her. This documentary will delight you.
Included are two fabulous links to her life story, one made into a one-woman play. Click on them and take the time to learn more about her. Spread her story…..she is alive in all of us fighting for truth and justice.
Bravo Molly, you live on with these honors bestowed upon you. Your unconquerable spirit lifts us still.
“Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government, is on the high road to permanent glory.” -Molly Ivins
https://www.documentary.org/project/raise-hell-life-times-molly-ivins
RAISE HELL is about a Texas maverick named MOLLY IVINS. Often compared to Mark Twain, she was one of the most courageous journalists of modern times… and also one of the funniest!
The six-foot tall, red-haired Texan used her razor-sharp wit to speak truth to power while giving a voice to those who didn’t have one. Calling out corrupt politicians who were backed by corporate bosses was great sport for Molly, and many of her targets loved being in her columns. Molly said “I believe that it’s fair game when these guys stand up and say something foolish to lay it right out there and let people get a good look at what they have elected.”
Molly was a trailblazer for female journalists. At the height of her popularity, nearly 400 papers carried her column. She appeared on national television and radio, lectured all over the country and encouraged her constituents to raise hell and fight for freedom. A fighter against injustice until the very end, breast cancer took Ivins out of the game way too soon.
Oscar and Tony nominee Kathleen Turner performs with a blend of sensuality, intelligence and bravado when she takes the stage as liberal newspaper columnist Molly Ivins in Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins. Written by twin-sister journalists Margaret and Allison Engel, the play is based on Ivins’ writings, interviews and speeches, all of which feature her characteristic sharp wit and satirical eye. David Esbjornson directs the production at Arena’s Mead Center for American Theater. For more on the show.
Allison and Margaret Engel: twin sisters, journalists and authors said they felt that the theater was the best place to commemorate Ivins, who died of breast cancer in 2007, at the age of 62. Since then, the Engels have been at work on “Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins,” and the play has been the beneficiary of a string of fortuitous events — including the casting of Kathleen Turner in the one-woman show — that would be the envy of theater veterans.
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