March 03, 2025
Audrey's Children/YouTube
Dr. Audrey Evans, played by actress Natalie Dormer, pioneered a treatment protocol for neuroblastoma, a form of childhood cancer. She spent much of her career at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
The first trailer for "Audrey's Children," a biopic of the trailblazing pediatrician who co-founded the first Ronald McDonald House in Philadelphia, has arrived just weeks before the movie's release in theaters.
The film picks up in 1969, shortly after Dr. Audrey Evans has taken a job as the first oncology chief at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. As the teaser shows, the British expat is determined to help the kids in her care but struggles to obtain funding for her cancer research. Evans also realizes that many of her patients' parents are struggling to shoulder the cost of treatment at CHOP; families from out of town are at a particular disadvantage due to the added hotel bills. So Evans seizes on the idea of a free place for those families to stay. She and Eagles general manager Jimmy Murray opened one on Spruce Street in 1974.
That was the first Ronald McDonald House, named for the funding boost Evans and Murray received from local McDonald's franchises (specifically, the proceeds from their Shamrock Shakes). It served as a model for the over 385 locations that eventually opened around the world.
Evans was also known for her work in neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer that forms in nerve cells. Thanks to a treatment protocol she developed, the mortality rate for kids with the disease dropped by 50% during her CHOP tenure. She worked at the hospital until her retirement in 2009. She died in 2022.
"Game of Thrones" actress Natalie Dormer plays Evans. The rest of the cast includes Clancy Brown as Dr. C. Everett Koop, the head of pediatric surgery at CHOP and later U.S. Surgeon General, and Jimmi Simpson as Dr. Giulio John D'Angio, another CHOP specialist and Evans' eventual husband.
"Audrey's Children" filmed in Center City in 2022 and played at the Philadelphia Film Festival in 2024. It did not have a release date, however, until Blue Harbor Entertainment acquired the distribution rights last month. The movie will open Friday, March 28. Watch the trailer below:
Follow Kristin & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @kristin_hunt
| @thePhillyVoice
Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice
Have a news tip? Let us know.
