•• Oscar nominee Virginia Madsen will play Anna Nicole’s mother Virgie. The Lifetime movie will feature Anna Nicole’s early life as a small-town Texas high school dropout and single mother, who had yet to change her name from Vicky Lynn Hogan to Anna Nicole Smith.

Private Practice alum Agnes Bruckner will tackle the lead role in the flick, which chronicles the late Playboy model’s tragic life. Also starring in the movie are Cary Elwes, Martin Landau, Virginia Madsen, and Adam Goldberg.

In order to bring the project to life, Sony Pictures Television tapped American Psycho director Mary Harron to spearhead the project. The talented filmmaker worked from a script penned by John Rice and Joe Batteer.

Anna Nicole will trace the model’s career from her early days as a topless dancer to her tragic death in February of 2007. Smith’s marriage to J. Howard Marshall, her photo shoot for Playboy, and her reality television show are reportedly covered in the biopic.

With this much talent in front and behind the camera, Anna Nicole should at least be an entertaining watch. Lifetime’s movies are usually hit and miss, but this one seems to have more promise than most. However, this isn’t the first time someone has made a movie centered around Smith’s life. Director Keoni Waxman and the folks at Nasser Entertainment Group released The Anna Nicole Smith story back in 2009. Singer and actress Willa Ford tackled the lead role in the movie.

Lifetime will premiere Anna Nicole on Saturday, June 29 at 8 pm. The flick will likely find its way onto home video before the end of the year.

•• Virginia Madsen has joined the cast of the Lifetime telemovie “The Anna Nicole Story” which Sony Pictures TV and Storyline Entertainment are producing. “American Psycho” director Mary Harron has also come on board to helm the biopic about Vickie Lynn Hogan, a pretty but plain small town Texan girl who transformed herself into the voluptuous, Marilyn Monroe-esque Anna Nicole Smith.

Virginia Madsen will play Vickie’s mom Virgie, Landau will play oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall who married then-stripper Smith when he was 89 and she was 26. John Rice and Joe Batteer penned the script.