EXCLUSIVE: Jamie Lee Curtis revealed to us on today’s Hero Nation that while she’s not expecting a third season of Scream Queens, she is reteaming with that series co-creator Ryan Murphy on a new Netflix limited series tentatively titled Outfielder. (According to sources close to the matter, there are no deals for the project which is yet to progress beyond an early conversation stage.)
“Ryan is producing a project I’ve been trying to get made as a producer for over ten years. I’ve had the rights to a project of the life of the man who invented the High Five,” the Halloween franchise actress of six films tells us on Hero Nation.
That man being 19-year old Los Angeles Dodger Glenn Burke, who on Oct. 2, 1977 delivered the first recorded high five. That’s when Dusty Baker hit his 30th home run during the last game of the regular season, landing himself in a group of three other Dodgers who had also hit 30 home runs. The event was also documented in the ESPN 30 for 30, docu short The High Five directed by Michael Jacobs.
Burke, who played for the Dodgers and Oakland Athletics from 1976 to 1979, was the first MLB player to come out as gay to his teammates and team owners during his professional career and the first to publicly acknowledge it. Burke told The New York Times that “Prejudice drove me out of baseball sooner than I should have. But I wasn’t changing”. He also wrote in his autobiography that “prejudice just won out.” Burke competed in the 1982 Gay Olympics in track and in 1986 in basketball. He died of AIDs in 1995 and was among the first class of inductees into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.
Outfielder is being written and would be directed by Robert O’Hara who was recently Tony nominated for Best Direction of a Play for Slave Play. If deals are made, Murphy would produce through his Ryan Murphy Television company for Netflix with Curtis also producing.
You can listen to our Hero Nation podcast with Curtis below:
Subscribe to the Hero Nation podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify