‘The First Lady’ Stars Viola Davis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Gillian Anderson on Becoming Michelle Obama, Betty Ford and Eleanor Roosevelt

Michelle Pfeiffer didn’t know much about Betty Ford before she signed on to play her in the new Showtime anthology series “The First Lady.”“I really only knew about, of course, the Betty Ford Center, which is I think what she’s the most famous for,” Pfeiffer told me at the show’s premiere on Thursday at the DGA building in Los Angeles.

“And I knew that she came out and was open and transparent about her own issues with substance abuse and alcoholism, which was very, very taboo at the time.

And she was discouraged from doing so.

And she came out and spoke candidly and transparently about her breast cancer and about mental illness.”Pfeiffer’s admiration for Ford grew while preparing for the role before transforming into the presidential spouse, who became first lady in 1974 when Gerald Ford was sworn in as president following Richard Nixon

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