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The story of the first person to undergo sex-reassignment surgery gets the Hollywood treatment
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman to star in sex-change movie
Nicole Kidman is to star in a film adaptation of The Danish Girl, David Ebershoff's novel concerning the life of Einar Wegener, the first person to undergo sex-reassignment surgery to become a woman, later taking the name of Lile Elbe.
Kidman herself will produce the film, but Charlize Theron, who was to play Wegener's wife, Gerda, has departed the production along with the original director, who has been replaced by Tomas Alfredson, best known for 2008's vampire drama Let the Right One In.
Wegener, a Danish painter, went to Germany in 1930 for surgery, which was only experimental at that time. A series of five operations were carried out over a period of two years, including removal of the testicles, removal of the penis, the transplantation of ovaries, and the transplantation of a uterus, intended to allow Elbe, then nearing fifty, to become a mother. She died in 1931 of complications resulting from her fifth surgery.
