Blythe Danner Set as Ruth Madoff as ABC Drama Fills Out Cast

ABC’s Bernie Madoff scandal drama is filling out its cast.

Blythe Danner has been tapped to co-star opposite Richard Dreyfuss in the multiple-episode drama inspired by chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross‘ book The Madoff Chronicles: Inside the Secret World of Bernie and Ruth, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Also joining the cast are Frank Whaley, Erin Cummings and Tom Lipinski, with Raymond De Felitta (City Island) now set to direct the drama, which is being written by Ben Robbins (The First 48).  Linda Berman (Heat Wave, The Assets) and Joe Pichirallo (Hollywoodland) are on board to executive produce Madoff for ABC. The drama is currently in production; an exact episode count has not yet been revealed.

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Danner — currently earning rave reviews for Sundance hit I’ll See You in My Dreams, is set to play Ruth Madoff, the wife of the former stockbroker and fiancier convicted of fraud in the Ponzi scheme that is considered to be the largest financial fraud in U.S. history. She was the director of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.

Whaley (Pulp Fiction, Ray Donovan) is set to play the hero, Harry Markopolos, a former securities exec and an independent forensic and financial fraud investigator who discovered evidence over nine years that led to the discovery of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

Cummings, who next stars in ABC’s upcoming summer soap Astronaut Wives Club, will portray Eleanor Squillari, Madoff’s 25-year secretary who searched for the truth about her boss’ fraud.

Lipinski (Suits, The Knick) will play Mark Madoff, Bernie and Ruth’s eldest son who worked for his father and committed suicide two years after his father’s arrest. He was also under investigation and had been named in multiple investor lawsuits accusing him of profiting from the scheme.

Danner, who previously starred with Dreyfuss in The Lightkeepers, is repped by Anonymous Content; Whaley is with APA and Karen Forman Management; Cummings is with Paradigm, Untitled and Del Shaw; Lipinski is with Gersh and TMT Entertainment. De Felitta is with APA, Exile Entertainment and Franklin Weinrib.

Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit