Katherine Heigl to play Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president of the United States, in a limited series

Deadline

Titled Woodhull, the series will use several biographies to tell the story of the feminist icon, who ran for president in 1872. Heigl will play Woodhull and executive produce the series from Oakhurst Entertainment that has yet to find a platform and showrunners. "In 1872, Woodhull became the first woman to run for president from the Equal Rights Party, supporting women’s suffrage and equal rights; her running mate was abolitionist leader Frederick Douglas," according to Deadline. "She was the first woman to address the U.S. Congress and, with her sister Tennessee, the two became the first women to operate a brokerage firm on Wall Street. The sisters used the money they had made from their brokerage to found a newspaper. Woodhull was accused of blackmail and prostitution and, along with her sister, was arrested and charged on the eve of the presidential election for printing obscenities after their paper published an exposé of a renowned preacher, revealing that he had committed adultery. It was this arrest and Woodhull’s acquittal that propelled Congress to pass the 1873 Comstock Laws." Heigl says of the role: “The moment I discovered the almost too big to be true story of Victoria I have been enthralled and deeply invested in bringing her life story to the screen. Victoria’s outrageous courage, determination, intelligence and hutzpah would be remarkable in our modern times but was downright revolutionary in hers. Her name and her story has not been celebrated nearly enough for the trails she blazed and the paths she forged for all the women who came after her. I cannot wait to tell the story of this woman who would not be stopped in a time that forbade her to even start.”