Love and Death: Mesmerising crime drama you won't want to miss on ITV
Sometimes fact can be stranger – and in the case of Candy Montgomery, grislier – than fiction.
Last year, her story was turned into a seven-episode mini-series by super-producer and writer David E Kelley, the man behind such previous hits as Chicago Hope, Ally McBeal and, more recently, Big Little Lies and Big Sky. If you’re an ITVX subscriber, you may have watched it when the show debuted on the streaming service a few months ago. Now the rest of us are getting a chance to see it.
The story begins by depicting Candy as a seemingly ordinary housewife living with her husband and two children in Wylie, Texas, in 1980. The family are regular attendees of the local Methodist church, where she meets schoolteacher Betty Gore, who lives nearby with her own husband, Allan, and their offspring.
Everything seems perfect, until Candy and Allan begin an illicit affair that’s brought to an abrupt end by Betty’s violent death.
As we witness during the drama, Candy struck her 41 times with an axe in what seemed like an open-and-shut case of murder, but turned out to be anything but. It’s no secret that she was found not guilty; how and why – as well as a build up to the attack – are what make the story fascinating.
In 2022, the same case featured in the drama Candy, with Jessica Biel in the title role. Elizabeth Olsen plays her in Love & Death, with Jesse Plemons and Lily Rabe also starring.
Kelley based his scripts on Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs, Jim Atkinson and John Bloom’s book about the crime.
“I was fascinated,” says Kelley. “I was engrossed in the characters and their pathology. It all drew me in – the place, the people and, of course, the insane plot.”
He immediately approached Blossom Films, the company run by Nicole Kidman and Per Saari, which also worked with Kelley on Big Little Lies. They were thrilled to get on board.
“With David, we always trust that his writing will reflect the human condition, which is what Nicole and I are most drawn to,” says Saari, adding that a gruesome axe murder has to be entertaining. “It has to feel human. We experienced this making Big Little Lies. The characters are in challenging situations, but we presented them like a cappuccino: frothy on top, but underneath there’s a bitter taste that gives you that punch.
“We had to honour the facts and spirit of who these people were. Candy wasn’t a ‘psychopath’; she was – and is – a real person who had feelings and complexities; Betty too.”
“When I consider doing any series, the first question I ask is ‘Why?’ And if the story has a strong plot with characters that can entertain and provoke – those are good jumping-off points. And all of that was in these characters,” adds Kelley.
“I could relate to them. I’ve been to those churches, I’ve seen people singing in choirs and socialising at picnics. I felt as if I knew them. At the same time, I didn’t know what some of them, especially Candy, were capable of becoming…”