Friday, January 2, 2015

Deadly Silence, A (1989) TV Movie

Made for TV, A Deadly Silence was based on the book by New York Times reporter Dena Kleiman. It is the doleful story of Long Island teenager Cheryl Pierson (Heather Fairfield), who in February of 1986 orchestrated the murder of her electrician father James Pierson (Charles Haid). The film does not argue that Cheryl was innocent. It does, however, delve into the deep waters of "extenuating circumstances". With the utmost taste and discretion, A Deadly Silence reveals that, for at least five years, Cheryl had endured sexual abuse at the hands of her father. Over and above the basic story, the film explores the "deadly silence" of incest - a silence often maintained not only by the victim, but by friends and family members who don't want to cause "trouble". Mike Farrell, Richard Portnow, Jeff Corey and Sally Struther costar, while future Friends regular David Schwimmer essays an important minor role. A Deadly Silence premiered April 16, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A Deadly Silence  (1989) TV Movie
Cast: Mike Farrell, Bruce Weitz, Charles Haid, Richard Portnow, Wallace Langham, Heather Fairfield, Sally Struthers, David Schwimmer, Jeff Corey
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1 comment:

  1. writerstricksofthetrade.blogspot.comJune 28, 2016 at 10:21:00 AM PDT

    I thought you would be interested to know that thirty years later Cheryl Pierson Cuccio and Rob Cuccio Jr have written a book about the reality of their situation and what happened afterwards. Unfortunately, Dena Kleiman never spoke to either one of them directly so certain things in her book were skewed. The manuscript, Incest, Murder and a Miracle, is currently with our agent. The miracle is that in 2012 Rob was dead for 43 minutes and due to Cheryl's insistence that they keep trying to revive him after he was pronounced dead, he came back to life with only 2 minutes left of the time the doctors allotted. He is back at work as an oncology nurse. I co-authored the book with them. Please contact me if you would like to be in touch with them for a blog interview. Cheryl will be interviewedd in an episode about the case on Discovery ID channel in 2017.

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