It’s the story of a woman who understands the true meaning of labor. Lilly Ledbetter fought not only for her right to fair pay but also for women’s rights across the country.
In a nearly decade-long journey, Ledbetter took her fight for equal pay to the United States Supreme Court and then to the United States Congress. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 was the first legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama.
The feature film “Lilly,” directed by Rachel Feldman, depicts the life of Lilly Ledbetter and will have its world premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival on October 10. The Oscar-nominated Patricia Clarkson portrays the fair pay icon.
For Clarkson, playing one of her heroes was a dream come true. Growing up in the South, Lilly was a household name.
“I grew up with a very powerful mother… who ran the city of New Orleans as the president of the City Council. And my mother raised five daughters. So you can imagine the impact of Lilly,” said Clarkson.
“I played such an array of characters in my life, in my career, but I rarely had the chance to play a truly great American woman,” Clarkson continued. “It was so easy to say yes, but it’s tough to play one of your heroes. I knew it would be quite a journey. It was intriguing and thrilling and emotional for me to step into this part. To take on Lilly Ledbetter.”
Clarkson, who has starred in numerous leading and supporting roles in hits like “Shutter Island,” “Pieces of April,” “The Green Mile,” “Sharp Objects,” and “The Untouchables,” described the pressure of bringing someone as iconic as Lilly Ledbetter to life on screen.
“It’s so much easier to play unsavory characters,” Clarkson laughed. “But I wanted this challenge. I wanted to be tested. I wanted to see if I could really play her in all her glory and grit.”
Ledbetter worked for 19 years as a night supervisor at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Alabama. She took the job in 1979 at age 39 to help her family, which was struggling to make ends meet. She grew up in poverty in Possum Trot, Alabama, without electricity or running water. She picked cotton for eight cents daily, striving to be part of the middle class.
“We rarely tell these stories,” said Clarkson. “Think about it… We’ve had Erin Brockovich, Sally Field in ‘Norma Rae.’ We rarely tell these stories anymore of truly great women who changed the landscape of our country.”
When nearing retirement, Ledbetter received an anonymous note alerting her that the salary of her male coworkers, who held the same position, was 40 percent higher than hers. Ledbetter filed a charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Birmingham. The fight would be long — nine years from start to finish. The lower federal court awarded her $3.8 million, but Goodyear appealed the verdict.
“This was a woman who was put back on the line, lugging tires at 60. With that comes a certain physicality and a certain strength that she must have still had, but yet a brutality to the body,” said Clarkson.
Ledbetter’s case went to the United States Supreme Court with the help of young civil rights lawyer Jon Goldfarb. She lost her case in the Supreme Court with a 5 to 4 vote. It was ruled she was not within the 180-day statute of limitations for filing an equal-pay lawsuit regarding pay discrimination.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her dissent, in a rare occurrence reading from the bench, “The Court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination. The ball is in Congress’s court to correct this Court’s parsimonious reading of Title VII.”
Following that outcome, she was met by the American Civil Liberties Union, The National Women’s Law Center, and several other organizations that urged her to come to Washington, D.C., to continue the fight. At the time, she was also dealing with personal trauma. Her husband Charles, her high school sweetheart, was terminally ill with cancer.
“The rejections she suffered, and she still rallied with nothing. Sometimes putting her marriage and her children in jeopardy. She had a remarkable husband, but still, he was very ill at the end,” said Clarkson.
The film exhibits the relationships in Ledbetter’s life, from the deep love story she shared with her husband, played by John Benjamin Hickey, to her admiration for her lawyer, Jon Goldfarb, played by Thomas Sadoski.
“The one and only John Hickey was just perfection,” said Clarkson. “It was an honor. You know, John and I go way back. We’re old, old friends. It was just one of the highlights of my career to finally really work with him. I get to make out with him. He is a fantastic kisser [laughs]. He’s sexy and humble and perfectly cast. And then there’s the great Tommy Sadoski, who is just meant for this.”
Ledbetter spoke at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and the footage is used in the film. When President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 into law, cementing Lilly’s story in American history, he stated, “Lilly Ledbetter didn’t set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She was just a good hard worker who did her job — and did it well — for nearly two decades before discovering that for years, she was paid less than her male colleagues for the very same work. Over the course of her career, she lost more than $200,000 in salary, and even more in pension and Social Security benefits — losses she still feels today.”
“[Obama] knew the impact she had on so many people in this country. And it reverberated around the world,” said Clarkson. “It’s still shocking to me. There are young women who don’t know who she is. You need to know. Equal pay is essential. We are not completely equal yet. There are still issues.”
The 2009 law overturned the Supreme Court’s decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber and amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964, making each paycheck that contains discriminatory compensation a separate violation, no matter when the discrimination began. Today, on average, women working full-time, year-round are paid 84 percent of what men are paid, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
What does Clarkson hope viewers take away from the film? “I hope that it will reawaken a fire in people,” she said. “I remember back in Hollywood, I didn’t get paid the same as my male counterparts when I was first starting out in this industry. We were not paid the same in any way, shape, or form.”
“This movie is for all of those really intense workers across our country,” she continued. “The people who really do the hard work every day, loading and unloading in factories, working night shifts, giving up time with their children, giving up time with their families.”
The Hamptons International Film Festival premiere will also mark Ledbetter and Clarkson’s first in-person meeting.
“It will be emotional. She’s so excited about this premiere. It’s her night,” said Clarkson. “I’m excited to be there. I’ve got a bunch of my friends coming to the Hamptons for the premiere. There’ll be some illustrious people there. It will be a beautiful place to debut this film. We sold out very quickly. That, to me, is a tribute to the great Lilly Ledbetter.”
“There are a lot of very strong, very powerful women who live in the Hamptons,” she continued.
Her favorite scene? You’ll have to watch the film. “I don’t want to ruin the ending,” she said. “That last scene. In the restaurant. It was amazing to shoot. It still brings tears to my eyes. It encapsulated everything that she is and the quiet, beautiful, monumental effect that she could have.”
Speaking with Clarkson clearly shows how close this project is to her heart, with a beautiful admiration for Lilly and the team that brought it all together.
“I’m really thankful for Rachel, my stunning director,” said Clarkson. “It was just a beautiful group of people who came together, and we had this real female crew on this movie. We have an amazing female producer, Allyn Stewart. All of us are still deeply embedded because of the journey we took on this film.”
“This is a momentous time for me,” Clarkson reflected. “I’ve done a lot of work in this industry. This is near and dear to my heart. My mother passed recently. My only sadness is that my mother will never see me as Lilly Ledbetter. But she’s with me in spirit.”
