Season 2: Episode 40 - BOOK TO SCREEN: Sybil (1976)

Sybil (1976)

 

Sybil is the true story of Shirley Ardell Mason, a woman with sixteen different personalities.  In order to secure her anonymity. The book and two part film, starts with Sybil blacking out and it slowly unfolds to reveal the separate personalities and is a close representation of the book by Flora Rheta Schreiber.

 

Using extensive therapies which include amobarbital and hypnosis, Cornelia B Wilbur would diagnose her as having disassociated identity disorder.  The book was a bestseller and would become a very successful television film on NBC in November 1976 earning Sally Fields an Emmy and the film would win a special Peabody Award.

 

After everyone who was involved with the Sybil story died, a couple of people have argued about the legality of the “Sybil” case.  People who knew Shirley Ardell Mason argue that the story is legit.  It is often queried why the people who discredit the story would wait until the death of Mason and Wilbur to come forward.  We may never know the true story but it is one of the most interesting true stories that we can’t help but explore the case of Sybil.

 

Opening Credits (.20); Introduction (5.15); Forming the Plot (20.56); Page to Page (28.07); Commercial Break (1:27.02); Film Trailer (1:28.56); Lights, Camera, Action (1:30.09); Epilogue (2:04.33); End Credits (2:10.29); Closing Credits (2:11.34)

 

Opening Credits:  Me and I - by Abba – From the album Supertrouper

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Closing Credits: Multiple Personalities – by Ghost Town Hangmen – Taken from the album Multiple Personalities

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All songs available on Amazon.

 

We apologise for the sound quality of this episode.  We were using new equipment that did not go as plan.