Leonardo DiCaprio has “the inside
track” on the lead role in the upcoming Alan Turing biopic, Nikki
Finke's Deadline
Hollywood reported.
Warner Brothers on Tuesday outbid half
a dozen indie companies to acquire the rights to screenwriter Graham
Moore's The Imitation Game, which
is based on Andrew Hodges' 608-page biography
Alan Turing: The Enigma. The
studio reportedly paid 7 figures for the script.
The British
mathematician who helped crack the German's Enigma machine code – a
triumph of computer science and a turning point for the Allies in
World War II – was also gay.
In 1952, Turing
acknowledged a sexual relationship with Arnold Murray to detectives
investigating a break in at Turing's Manchester home. Both were
charged with gross indecency. Turing was convicted and given the
choice of going to prison or submitting to a form of chemical
castration via estrogen hormone injections. He chose the latter.
The therapy left him impotent and he developed breasts.
It is widely
believed that he committed suicide two years after his arrest by
eating a cyanide-laced apple.
Three
time Oscar nominee DiCaprio stars in next month's Clint
Eastwood-directed J. Edgar,
which is based on the life of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Rumors
that Hoover was gay persist to this day.
(Related:
Leonardo
DiCaprio, Clint Eastwood asked FBI whether J. Edgar Hoover was gay.)