The Burning Bed is both a 1980 non-fiction book by Faith McNulty about battered housewife Francine Hughes, and a 1984 TV-movie adaptation written by Rose Leiman Goldemberg. The plot follows Hughes' trial for the murder of her husband, James Berlin "Mickey" Hughes, following her setting fire to the bed he was sleeping in at their Dansville, Michigan home on March 9, 1977, and thirteen years of physical domestic abuse at his hands.
She seemed to have getting revenge on abusive men as a theme. I saw her in an off-Broadway play called Extremities, by William Mastrosimone, which was also made into a movie.
"Fawcett won kudos for her 1983 role in the off-Broadway stage production of the controversial play Extremities, written by William Mastrosimone. She followed Susan Sarandon in the role, in which she played a would-be rape victim who turns the tables on her attacker. In 1986 Fawcett appeared in the movie version of Extremities, which was also well-received by critics, and for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama." 9from Broadwayworld.com)
It was very violent, even on a small stage in a small theater. A very good friend was one of the producers of that play, so I got to meet her afterwards. She was exhausted but lovely, and was amused to hear we share the same birthday. She rattled off a list of famous people who also were born on the same day, as did I. It was fun.
But honestly she had a kind of haunted air about her. The onerous intensity of that play was still with her well after the production closed.
Iirc her relationship with Ryan O'Neal wasn't a bed of roses, either.
Complicated.
