In "Jefferson in Paris" (1995) Ms. Jhabvala developed the story herself and courted controversy by portraying an affair between the founding father and his slave, Sally Hemings.

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But the chairwoman of the memorial foundation's research committee, Dianne Swann-Wright, noted that President Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings' children when they were adults - a highly unusual move for the time.

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It was perhaps the revelation (or confirmation) of Jefferson's amours with his slave Sally Hemings, and more broadly the changed attitude of Americans to race, that freed them from the waxworks in which they had been imprisoned.

ECONOMIST: George Washington

This film, by the producing and directing team of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, deals with his passion for French political reform during the approach of the Revolution, his ambiguous attitude toward slavery (exemplifled in his alleged affair with a black maid, Sally Hemings), and his love for a married woman, Maria Cosway.

NEWYORKER: Jefferson in Paris