Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story

Synopsis

In this fact-based wire TV play, Thora Birch stars as Liz Murray, the girl of a caring but exceedingly dysfunctional Bronx household. Weighed downward with a coke-addict father and a HIV-infected mother, Liz spends her earlier years shuttling from seedy flat to national protection and backwards again. At 15, she breaks off from her house living (what there is of it) and takes to the streets. Only after the death of her mother does Liz produce the decision to best her plenty in living. Virtually begging her manner backwards into higher school, she becomes a superb pupil, and at 19, with financing from a scholarship and a temporary work with the New York Public Interest Group, "born also-ran" Liz enters Harvard University. The genuine Liz Murray co-produced the movie and plays a cameo character as a cultural worker. Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story premiered April 7, 2003, on the Lifetime web. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide