• The Pits

Stewart film canned over false affair storyline

Jackie Stewart was hoping the film would pay tribute to his good friend and team-mate Francois Cevert © Sutton Images

Enlarge

Related Links

• Drivers:
• François Cevert
• |
• Jackie Stewart

A film about three-time champion Sir Jackie Stewart may be canned after his wife objected to scenes depicting her having an affair with Stewart's team-mate Francois Cevert.

The film was set to be directed by William Pohlad, the director of Brokeback Mountain , and has been three years in development but now looks set to be vetoed by Lady Helen Stewart. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday she said she had objected to a made up storyline involving her and Cevert.

"It was going to be a big film - but they wanted to say that I'd had an affair with Francois Cevert... and I wouldn't let them do it, because it wasn't true.

"[It] was probably the most exciting part of the film - if it was true. But it wasn't. Francois was a great friend of Jackie's and of mine but they wanted to make something of it - which was crazy.

"Francois was described as the most exciting man in France at that time. We had great fun with him, he loved the children, he loved everyone that we were with, he had a great girlfriend.

"But Jackie and I are childhood sweethearts and we have been happily married for 50 years. I met Jackie when we were 16 and we got married when I was 21. We have two children together and nine grandchildren.

"Anyway they're not making the film. That's the sole reason it's scrapped - which seems a bit stupid to me seeing as it's not true in the first place."

Speaking to Autosport last year, Stewart said he had hoped the film would pay tribute to his close friend Cevert, who died in an accident during qualifying for the 1973 US Grand Prix.

"I think it will be a good movie," he said in March last year. "They are working hard on it. The storyline is about how two drivers who are normally opposed to each other as team-mates become really close. I've told Bill everything - all the great relationships we had. There will be a lot of tears."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.