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Paltrow to play Sylvia Plath in British film

David Brown
Saturday 14 September 2002 00:00 BST
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Gwyneth Paltrow is to portray Sylvia Plath in a British film about her torrid marriage to fellow poet Ted Hughes.

Ted and Sylvia will be promoted as "a passionate love affair between two great minds". A film version of the relationship has been under discussion since Hughes' frank revelations in his final book, Birthday Letters, which was published in 1998, the year he died.

From the moment the poets first kissed at Cambridge their union was passionate. Hughes later wrote: "It seemed your long, perfect American legs/ simply went on up."

But their relationship was to end in tragedy. Plath committed suicide in 1963 after Hughes abandoned the marriage and their two children.

Hughes will be portrayed by the English actor Daniel Craig, with filming scheduled to begin in November.

The Film Council and BBC Films are believed to have underwritten a third of the £7m cost with BBC Films, with the British-based Capitol Films co-funding the production.

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