Palisadian Bonnie Burgess is living her dream, she says, stepping up as a producer, now that her children are grown, to bring ‘The Olive Sisters’ to the big screen. ’It’s about a woman making a fresh start’discovering what really matters,’ she says of the book by New Zealander Amanda Hampson. Though Burgess makes clear that raising her children was ‘the most important thing,’ she’s also making a fresh start, ready to pursue a new adventure and have a ‘second life.’ ’I’ve always known that (producing) is what I wanted to do,’ says the former actress, who formed Sorelle (which means sisters in Italian) Productions in 2009. She has no sisters of her own, but started the company with two great friends, Linda Sherwood and Georgie Fenton, with whom she’s had a 30-year relationship. The company has three other films in development and six more they are working on, but ‘The Olive Sisters’ is clearly a labor of love for Burgess. She is absolutely passion’ate about both the author and her book, in part because it reminds her of her own family. The book tells two stories in parallel. One is the story of Italian immigrants to Australia who raise two daughters on a farm with an olive grove. That tale reminded Burgess of her Italian grandfather, a gardener. The more contemporary story, of the immigrants’ grown granddaugh’ter retreating to the olive grove when her business in the city fails, also offers interesting parallels. A magazine feature writer and nonfiction author, Hampson took her own mid-life leap into the unknown. ‘She chose to venture out on her own with her children and wondered what on earth was she going to do with herself,’ Burgess says, and then ‘she picked up a pen and wrote ‘The Olive Sisters.” Hampson herself calls the decision to write a novel ‘the big, scary dream.’ Burgess came across the book serendipitiously, in an airport shop while en route from Port Douglas, Australia, to Brisbane. She was traveling with her husband Don Bur’gess, ASC, an Academy Award- nom’inated director of photography, on location for ‘Fool’s Gold,’ with Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. He has a host of successful films to his credit, including ‘Forrest Gump,’ Spider-Man,’ ‘Cast Away and ‘Terminator 3,’ and is cur’rently working on ‘The Muppets.’ Bonnie Burgess fell so in love with the book that she immedi’ately called her agent to arrange a meeting with the author, who lives in Sydney. The two hit it off immediately. Hampson agreed to let Burgess turn the book into a film and the producer, in turn, decided that the author was the right person to adapt the book, though she had never attempted a screenplay. ‘No one knows these characters better than you do,’ Burgess told Hampson. So the two women fueled each other’s dreams. As they worked to finish the script, Burgess’ energetic passion was tempered by Hampson’s reserve. ‘She writes her passion,’ Burgess says. In addition to trips between the U.S. and Australia, the women worked on re’writes over Skype. Don Burgess has signed onto the project to direct’a first for him, but something his wife says he’s always wanted to do. ‘No one could make this as visually beautiful as Don,’ she says. ‘He gets everything about it. It’s been a wonderful collaboration between Don, Amanda and myself.’ Another local resident, Barry Josephson, is an executive producer, together with Donald De Line. ‘It’s amazing how many Palisadians I have involved in my life and my company,’ Burgess says. Though the script is out for casting and crew members have not yet been hired, many may wonder who Don, a native Palisadian, will choose as his director of photography. ’If I had my way, my son Michael (27) would be,’ Bonnie Burgess says with a smile. It could be even more of a family affair, since daughter Brittany, 23, just finished working as a production assistant on ‘The Muppets.’ Only the Burgess’ oldest, Lindsy Junger, 31, who works as a labor and delivery nurse at Santa Monica Hospital, is unlikely to join the crew. Burgess hopes that the film will inspire other women. ‘I have so many friends . . . from the age of 50, who have made major life changes and ventured out to uncharted wa’ters and are doing incredible things,’ she says. ‘That’s what this book is teaching women’that it’s okay to step out of the circle and go for your dreams at 50.’ Amanda Hampson is traveling from Sydney to Village Books on Swarthmore for a book signing on Friday, March 4 at 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The festivities will include cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Contact: (310) 454-4063.
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