The first time we see an almost unrecognizable Jennifer Grey as the late, controversial diet guru and self-appointed church leader Gwen Shamblin in the Lifetime movie “Gwen Shamblin: Starving For Salvation,” it’s a jolt to the system. It’s quite likely you’ve never witnessed such a towering mountain of blonde hair atop a head, to the point where this has to be an exaggeration. But if you’ve seen photos of Shamblin or if you watched the five-part HBO documentary series “The Way Down,” you know the hair and makeup are spot-on.
Most important, Grey does a stellar job of disappearing into the character and becoming Shamblin, from her early days as a diet-obsessed young nutritionist who founded a modest weight-loss program called the Weigh Down Workshop in Tennessee through the exponential growth of the program to the point where it had more than 250,000 members and Shamblin founded her own church. She had become either a powerful and influential force for good or the leader of a cult-like organization, depending on your perspective.
