Is ‘Lady in the Lake’ Based on a True Story? How Natalie Portman’s Apple TV+ Show Holds Crime Fans Accountable

Apple TV+‘s new series Lady in the Lake offers a bold rebuttal to many true crime cliches. In addition to purposely leaning against realism, with writer-director Alma Har’el‘s embracing surrealist imagery and multiple mind-bending dream sequences. The story might follow a plucky journalist trying to solve the murders of a young Jewish girl and an overlooked Black woman, but it holds that “heroine” — Maddie Morgenstern Schwarz (Natalie Portman) — as well as the true crime-gobbling audience accountable for the way in which victims are often dehumanized by the genre.

From the very beginning of Lady in the Lake, Cleo Johnson (Moses Ingram) narrates the drama, pointing out how her own murder, her “end,” becomes a new “beginning” for Maddie. Through parallel story tracks, we watch as the disappearances, first of Tessie Durst (Bianca Belle) and later of Cleo, inspire Maddie to pursue justice for both victims through her journalism. However, in reporting on both cases, Maddie’s star rises. Her life becomes more her own. She is the phoenix that rises from Tessie and Cleo’s ashes, a truth hammered home more than one. And Moses Ingram’s Cleo is the one looming over the narrative, offering her perspective even after death.

“You know, true crime is so popular and I think a lot of times we watch it as if it’s a fictional series,” Lady in the Lake star Moses Ingram told Decider during a recent interview. “I think it is very important to keep the victim at the forefront, because there are people who are still living in the reality of what happened there.”

Lady in the Lake might shake up the true crime format by playing with dream sequences and incorporating Cleo’s voice, but is it even based on a real murder? How much of Lady in the Lake is based on a true story? And what’s up with those wacky dream sequences? Here’s what you need to know about the real murders that inspired Apple TV+’s Lady in the Lake…

Is Lady in the Lake Based on a True Story? The Real 1969 Murders that Inspired the Apple TV+ Natalie Portman Show:

While Lady in the Lake is a drama series based on a work of fiction, Laura Lippman’s original novel was very much inspired by two real 1969 murders.

Lippman explained to NPR that she was inspired to write Lady in the Lake when she learned about the unsolved murder of Shirley Parker. The 35-year-old Black woman was a was a “bookkeeper, barmaid, and waitress” at the popular Sphinx club and mother to two boys. She disappeared in April 1969, but her body wasn’t discovered in a fountain in a zoo until June 2 1969.

Parker’s death and disappearance was extremely overshadowed by another case at the time: the murder of 11-year-old Esther Lebowitz. Lippman, a life-long Baltimore resident, remembered hearing about Lebowitz’s death as a child, but didn’t know anything about Parker’s murder until she was working as a journalist at The Baltimore Sun. While Lebowitz’s body was quickly found and her murderer brought to justice, Parker’s murder is still a mystery.

Lady in the Lake imagines a fictionalized version of these events, with Tessie Durst and Cleo Johnson standing in for Lebowitz and Parker.

What’s With the Weird Dream Sequences in Apple TV+’s Lady in the Lake?

Part of Lady in the Lake that might confuse viewers are the many surrealist dream sequences throughout the series. Series star Natalie Portman told Decider that she felt these visually audacious moments really embraced “the mystery of life.”

“I mean, the mystery of life is is best encapsulated in dreams,” Portman said. “Like, it is so weird that we spend a third of our lives in another reality that doesn’t really make sense…I mean, it’s a very bizarre thing and to just ignore that aspect is like not embracing the full life.”

Portman said that Har’el asked her and Ingram to incorporate their own dreams into the many inventive sequences. Something that’s affected Portman, and the way she approaches her work, deeply.

“She had many of us work with a dream coach, where we worked through our own personal dreams with our characters and our relationship to it,” Portman said. “It’s changed the way I approach my work. Because, until then, I’ve been ignoring a third of my life. I’ve been ignoring my dreams as important, valuable tools.”

When Decider asked Ingram to weigh in, she said, “I think that’s a great answer. My eyes were opened. I said, ‘Wow, a third of my life, sleeping.’ That’s a lot.”

So those wild dream sequences might not just be reflective of Maddie and Cleo…they could be glimpses of Portman and Ingram’s own personal dreams. 

The first two episodes of Lady in the Lake are now streaming on Apple TV+. New episodes will premiere on Fridays.