The Burning Bed

The Burning Bed
GenreCrime
Drama
Based onThe Burning Bed
by Faith McNulty
Written byRose Leiman Goldemberg
Directed byRobert Greenwald
StarringFarrah Fawcett
Paul Le Mat
Richard Masur
Theme music composerCharles Gross
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Executive producersJon Avnet
Steve Tisch
ProducerCarol Schreder
CinematographyIsidore Mankofsky
EditorsRichard W. Fetterman
Michael A. Stevenson
Running time95 minutes
Production companyTisch/Avnet Productions Inc.
Original release
NetworkNBC
ReleaseOctober 8, 1984 (1984-10-08)
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The Burning Bed is a 1984 television drama film starring Farrah Fawcett, Paul Le Mat, and Richard Masur. Based on the 1980 non-fiction novel of the same name by Faith McNulty, it follows battered housewife Francine Hughes and her trial for the murder of her husband, James Berlin "Mickey" Hughes. Hughes set fire to the bed her husband was sleeping in at their Dansville, Michigan home on March 9, 1977 after thirteen years of physical domestic abuse at his hands.

The film was written by Rose Leiman Goldemberg and directed by Robert Greenwald. It aired on NBC on October 8, 1984. The movie premiered with a household share of 36.2, ranking it the seventeenth highest rated movie to air on network television and NBC's highest rated television movie.[1]

  1. ^ The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present. Ballantine Books. 2003. p. 805. ISBN 0-345-45542-8.