Jewel

Farrah Fawcett stars in this deeply moving story of family bonds and motherly love as a woman who vows to make a good life for her Down’s syndrome daughter., Emotionally charged drama about a mother’s struggle to bring up a child with Down’s syndrome in the 1940s, when the life expectancy of children with the condition was only two years. The film follows the family’s determined progress in a society prejudiced against disability., When a mother gives birth to a girl with Down’s syndrome, she is determined that her daughter will survive beyond the expected two years. But she must also contend with the way 1940s society treated such disabilities. Powerful drama., Based on fact, the made-for-TV drama Jewel begins in 1945, a time when children afflicted with Down Syndrome were casually and cruelly dismissed as “Mongoloid Idiots.” Already a mother with four healthy, normal children, 40-year-old Mississippi woman Jewel Hilburn (Farrah Fawcett) gives birth to daughter Brenda Kay, a Down’s baby who will forever be challenged both mentally and physically. Urged by the local authorities to surrender Brenda Kay to an institution, Jewel defies the “experts” and packs herself and her family off to Los Angeles, where she hopes that her daughter will have a better chance at a normal life. But in her zeal to shower affection and attention on her “different little girl”, Jewel sorely strains her relationships with her husband Leston (Patrick Bergin) and her other four kids. Cicely Tyson makes what the CBS publicity flacks labeled a “special appearance” in the role of a loving caregiver named Cathedral. Based on the novel by Bret Lott, Jewel originally aired February 7, 2001., Emotionally-charged drama about a mother’s struggle to bring up a child with Down’s syndrome in the 1940s, when the life expectancy of children with the condition was only two years. The film follows the family’s determined progress in a society prejudiced against disability., In 1940s rural Mississippi, a middle-aged woman with four healthy children receives both a burden and a blessing after giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome., Jewel Farrah Fawcett stars in this deeply moving story of family bonds and motherly love as a woman who vows to make a good life for her Down’s syndrome daughter., Emotionally charged drama about a mother’s struggle to bring up a child with Down’s syndrome in the 1940s, when the life expectancy of children with the condition was only two years. The film follows the family’s determined progress in a society prejudiced against disability. Director: Paul Shapiro