Apple TV+ on Tuesday dropped the first trailer for “Lady in the Lake,” the TV series based on a bestselling novel by the Baltimore author Laura Lippman that was filmed in and around Charm City.
The subscription TV streaming service said last month that “Lady in the Lake” will premiere July 19, when the first two of seven episodes will drop. Those will be followed by one episode every Friday through Aug. 23.
According to the Apple TV+ news release in May, “’Lady in the Lake’ emerges as a feverish noir thriller and an unexpected tale of the price women pay for their dreams.”
Directed by Alma Har’el, the miniseries was shot in Baltimore from the spring through the fall of 2022, and stars Natalie Portman and the Baltimore-born Moses Ingram, who graduated from Baltimore School for the Arts.
Some Baltimore landmarks seen in the trailer include the George Peabody Library, downtown Baltimore’s Redwood Street in a holiday snowfall, B’nai Israel Cemetery in Moravia-Walther and Druid Lake — or at least a Hollywood version of the Baltimore landmark that is a focus of the story.
“Lady in the Lake” takes place in Baltimore in 1966 and was inspired by two real-life killings.
The body of Shirley Lee Wigeon Parker (Cleo Sherwood in the book and Cleo Johnson in the television series) was found June 2, 1969, in a fountain at the center of Druid Lake. Parker was a 35-year-old barmaid at the then-famous Sphinx Club.
Just three months later, 11-year-old Esther Lebowitz (in the novel, she’s named Tessie Fine) was killed in the basement of a popular local aquarium store. The girl’s badly bruised body was found two days later in a wooded area known as a local lovers’ lane.
In Lippman’s novel, both deaths are investigated by Madeleine Schwartz (Maddie), a housewife turned reporter played by Portman in the TV adaptation. Maddie’s perspective is challenged and at times contradicted by the voice of Johnson, who is portrayed by Ingram.
The miniseries is expected to have an estimated economic impact of at least $47 million on Maryland, according to the Maryland Film Office. About 650 local residents were hired to work on the production.
