Hairspray (2007 film) the 1988 John Waters film upon which the stage musical is based, became interested in adapting the stage show as a musical film. Development work began in late 2004, while a similarly film-to-Broadway-to-film project, Mel Brooks' "The Producers", was in production. Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the executive producers of the Academy Award-winning film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Chicago", were hired as the producers for "Hairspray", and began discussing possibly casting John Travolta and Billy Crystal (or Jim Broadbent) as Edna and Wilbur Turnblad, respectively. Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell, authors of the book for the stage musical, wrote
Swan Turnblad community of Swedish immigrants. He attended local schools and after graduating high school he worked as a teacher and helped with the family's farm for several years. In 1878 he moved to Minneapolis, where he worked as a typesetter at several Swedish-language newspapers. Soon after arriving in the city he met another Swedish immigrant, Christina Nilsson (1861-1929). The couple married in 1883 and the following year Christina gave birth to her only child, Lillian Zenobia Turnblad (1884-1943). In 1887, Turnblad became the manager of the Swedish-language newspaper "Svenska Amerikanska Posten". His brother, Magnus Turnblad, joined him as the editor in