Dangerous Curves®
The Terri O’Connell Story
WGA Registration Number: 1845362
By Laney Dunbar/Terri O’Connell
TREATMENT
September 2017
OVERVIEW:
Dangerous Curves is a compelling, stylized, action adventure based on extraordinary, first in world history event. It is a “Real Life Story” that shocked and set the world of sports, and pop culture on its head in the late 90’s, and that controversy and intensity continues on today. Dangerous Curves is the compelling and dramatic life of Terri O’Connell, who was boldly and emphatically tagged as a real life “Female Rocky”, and a “Great American Story” by producers and media alike as her life story became known around the world. (The subject is Terri O’Connell, AKA world class and champion professional male race car driver J.T. Hayes)
O’Connell, or Terri O’, as she is called by fans around the world, is a beautiful model, author, artist and professional race car driver who not only set the world on its head when her life story careened and crashed into the international media during the late 90’s, she raised the bar of controversy and shock to a higher level in the controlled world of high stakes professional motorsports. In 1999 she dramatically and passionately revealed, at insurmountable risk to her career and her life, that she was the first and only person in history to compete in any professional sport both as “a male and as a female!” That’s a 5’6”, 119 pound, 34-24-34 beautiful woman, who broke all stereotypes for macho and brave, male and female race car drivers, and anyone dealing with complicated and controversial gender issues. But no one knew then, the real twist and turns of her compelling life story; no one knew the real story behind the headlines; no one knew just how dramatic, chilling and courageous her life had really been! No one, not even her closest friends or family!
This powerful and astonishing action-adventure biopic maps out the true, against all odds, life of America’s most compelling individuals. It is a dynamic life story, ironically set in the most oxymoronic way; living, breathing and challenging the status quo in the complicated, and socially entrenched deep South, and more ironically, in the midst of macho professional sports. It involves motorsports specifically, which is the last true bastion of male dominance and intimidation where one can lose their life at any moment. Add to this mixture Southern religious bigotry and high stakes national politics sparked by a crooked business partner running for Governor trying to take her down, and you have a volatile recipe that is ready to blow up in your face at any moment.
O’Connell’s challenging life ultimately transcends into an international adventure with enough twists and turns to fill ten action-adventure dramas. There is the idyllic, but daunting, childhood as early years are filled with daily battles to keep this young child alive because of a near fatal chronic illness, always surrounded by a loving and doting family, friends, and church, including the strong and compassionate Grandmother Sarah. Terri’s idyllic life was clearly built on the strong and rural idea of hard and steady work draped in the cloak of God’s saving grace and legacy, driven by her handsome and talented father, Jim.
However, by her early teens, Terri’s idyllic Southern life turned ugly and complicated, quickly transitioning into high speed car chases through the crowded streets of her picturesque home town with her now angry and alcoholic father hot on her trail, and with her in drag. Her dad was hell-bent on catching and harming her. Their once loving relationship had turned into constant turmoil surrounded by antagonistic confrontations that drove the family apart and pushed Terri into a deep and dangerous depression. Yet she strove to survive, and her racing career is was thriving in spite of the turmoil. But it’s only a matter of time before all of this dissension blew up in their faces, life’s dangerous curves and dark tragic social clouds loomed on the horizon
Act I
The movie opens with Terri, looking like a super model with her long blond hair flowing, walking down pit road at the Daytona International Speedway, masses of media in tow, heading to her 200 mile per hour stock car to finish unfinished business. She is in the midst of making world history. After all the pageantry and media frenzy, she climbs into her race car, straps in, pulls her purple helmet over her long flowing hair and prepares for battle on the high banks. As she pulls up on the track, the camera is playing through her eyes, she begins to reminisce, to fade back into history, back to the dramatic life she had lived, and survived. The movie then begins to fade back into time … back to 1982 and an even more dramatic race, a race for her life, a race for her dignity. A race unlike any in world history, one with more trials and tribulations than any mystery novel. A life that transcended into being “more than a race”. A life of unprecedented heartbreak and accomplishment, a life trailbazed from the dirt tracks in Mississippi, to the super speedways in Daytona onward to Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. Even back in 1982, she is in the race of her life, and her dad is hot on her trail in a 100 miles per hour car chase through the streets of her home town …