It’s crazy to think that we once lived in a time before television. People wanted to make shows, of course, but just didn’t know how. Who would star in them? Who would produce them?
The answer to those questions is Elisabeth Moss, the inventor of television. She first created television when she starred in The West Wing and then later developed it further with Mad Men, on which she played the iconic Peggy Olson. Now, she has given us series like The Handmaid’s Tale, Top of the Lake and, today Fever, a forthcoming show starring Moss as Typhoid Mary.
Based on Mary Beth Keane’s 2013 novel Fever, the show will follow the infamous Typhoid Mary, who was the first asymptomatic typhoid carrier. She ended up infecting over 22 people and killing three while working as a cook in the early 1900s. She was eventually quarantined and released, but afterwards, in a stunning twist of events, continued working as a cook and kept infecting people.
Moss, who has rights to the novel and probably every single book worth making into a television show, will executive produce the series.
Correction: A prior version of this post incorrectly stated that the novel Fever was published in 1999. It was published in 2013. Jezebel regrets the error.
