Kate Set to Star in Movie on Sex Freak
May 31, 1999
Titanic star Kate Winslet is teaming up with Geoffrey Rush for a film about one of the world's most infamous pornographers.
Oscar winner Rush will play the Marquis de Sade in the 125 million pound movie. Briton Winslet and the Australian actor of Shakespeare In Love fame will be joined by screen veteran Michael Caine.
The marquis scandalised French society in the 18th century with his books dealing with sexual excess and torture.
The screenplay for Quills is based on a 1995 stage about the final years of the marquis when he was imprisoned in a lunatic asylum.
Shooting begins at London's Pinewood Studios at the end of July. It is due to be released by the end of the year.
Rush, who won an Academy Award for Shine, is Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade, a man so feared inmates of the Bastille would brandish crucifixes as he stalked the corridors of the prison. Michael Caine, who won a Golden Globe for his role in Little Voice, plays a doctor at the asylum. Kate Winslet is Madeleine LeClerc, de Sade's maid and mistress, who smuggles his last writings out of the asylum.
A movie insider said: "Shooting begins at the end of July and they are still deciding on location shots.
"It's an amazing gathering with some of the best and brightest talent in films."
As recently as 50 years ago tourist travelling back to Britain from France smuggled his banned pornographic books through customs. A personal friend of the French royal family, the marquis wrote about numerous sexual encounters and perversions. He gave his name to the word sadism. De Sade had an affair with a sister-in-law 46 years his junior and was jailed during the French Revolution for refusing to believe in God. He died in 1814 aged 74.
