Ash set to make Marley soap opera

Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

There are countless Bob Marley biographies, documentaries and cover songs.

Now, a soap opera on the reggae legend is in the works.

The Deadline London website reports that American television director Jenny Ash is developing a film on Marley while he was living in London in 1977. She plans to focus on his relationship with Miss World 1976 Cindy Breakespeare and how it affected his marriage to Rita Marley.

"There's never been a fiction film about Marley. We've never had a sense of him as a real man, as opposed to the legend," Ash told Deadline London.

Ironically, Ash is nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on the critically acclaimed series, America: The Story of Us, which ran earlier this year on the History Channel.

Best and worst of times

It was a case of the best and worst of times for Bob Marley in late 1976.

His Rastaman Vibration album entered the American pop charts and he played to massive audiences in North America and Europe.

But in December, Marley was shot during an assassination attempt at his Hope Road home in St Andrew while rehearsing for the Smile Jamaica peace concert at Heroes Park. Fearing further attacks, he and his band The Wailers left, first for the Bahamas, then settled in London where he led sessions that resulted in the epic Exodus album, released in 1977 and the mellow Kaya, which was released the following year.

While he stayed true to the conscious message of his earlier albums for Island Records, Marley showed a softer side on songs like Waiting In Vain, Turn Your Lights Down Low, Is This Love and She's Gone.

Breakespeare, who gave birth to Marley's son Damian in 1978, has said he wrote Turn Your Lights Down Low for her.

Notorious womaniser

Marley was a notorious womaniser who reportedly fathered 12 children. His former manager, Don Taylor, wrote about his roving eye in the 1995 book, Marley And Me, which portrayed Rita Marley as a scheming, ambitious woman who, but for a professional relationship, Marley had long discarded.

Bob Marley's self-imposed exile ended in April 1978 when he headlined the One Love Peace Concert at the National Stadium in Kingston.