Movie Review :: Lifetime’s Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall

Lifetime

Anyone who is old enough to have been watching TV in the late 1990s knows that before the internet and social media, the only way to connect with other people in the world was through a phone call … on a landline, a phone that was actually connected to a wire that required the user to push numbered buttons to connect to your party (and if you were real old school, it was a dial phone). And how did you find out how to connect to people? By watching late night TV infomercials, which were mainly for lonely men looking to chat up hot women (but if they knew who they were really talking to, they may have reconsidered that phone call). A company called Psychic Readers Network took that formula to a new level with its psychic hotline that allowed viewers to learn their future by dialing a 1-800 number … for a price. PRN would hire anyone off the street, have them sign a form confirming they were indeed psychic (just a formality), and give them a script to follow for matters of the heart, family, jobs, etc. PRN exploded when they hired a woman by the name of Youree Harris, who went off script, pulled out her tarot cards and told people ‘the truth’. She was a hit … she just had to keep people on the line longer … and callers would ask specifically for her. PRN decided to air live infomercials with Harris, who created a character named Miss Cleo, adopted a Jamaican accent, and made millions for the company. But PRN’s shady practices caught up with them all in the end.

Lifetime’s latest ‘Ripped from the Headlines’ TV movie, Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall, pulls back the veil of mystery on Miss Cleo, a woman many people knew but actually didn’t know, at least not the real woman behind the character. Harris’ story in the movie starts as she’s working on a play for a local theatre company in California where she has created a character named Cleo. She and her two daughters are also living with her sister, but sister has violently assaulted one of the daughters for breaking an item given to her by her mother and Youree is determined to get her family out of that situation. And she does, quickly uprooting them to Fort Lauderdale … after absconding with the money made from the play which was supposed to be used to pay the other actors and crew. (It was a small enough amount that it would have cost more in legal fees to retrieve it so the theatre never pursued a case). Needing work, Harris finds herself with a company that charges people for psychic readings. Harris has always felt like she had a true gift and used her knowledge of the tarot, combined it with the character of Cleo, and quickly became the company’s top earner.

With dollar signs in their eyes, PRN owners Steven Feder and Peter Stolz (cousins as well) felt that Cleo, whom the callers began to refer to as Miss Cleo, become the face of the company, appearing in a live infomercial to compete with the Psychic Friends Network with their celebrity spokespeople Philip Michael Thomas, Billy Dee Williams and Catherine Oxenberg (singer Dionne Warwick was also involved with a tele-psychic hotline). She was an instant hit, raking in millions for PRN, but callers began to learn that their ‘free 3-minute call’ quickly added up to hundreds of dollars in phone bills. People also began to question the origin of Miss Cleo, with many calling out her fake accent and no one having records of her birth or education. Local and federal governments quickly got involved to investigate PRN for their deceptive practices, while the state of Florida also honed in on Miss Cleo herself, whose signature appeared on some official paperwork (which she claimed was forged). Cleo had to defend herself by showing that she was simply an employee of PRN and had nothing to do with their financials, but the connotation that she helped bilk people out of their money hung over her until the state finally dropped their case and she could live in peace. Sadly, Harris passed away from colorectal cancer at the age of 53 in 2016.

While the short-career of Miss Cleo was a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, Lifetime’s Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall is a pretty bland retelling of her story, although to its credit it does get most of the details right. As directed by Tim Reid (best known for his role as Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati), the story seems to jump around, only touching on the ‘greatest hits’ moments of Miss Cleo’s career, but it also gives us a glimpse into her personal life with her daughters and estranged mother who eventually comes to her rescue, so to speak. Most of the supporting actors are either phoning it in or over-acting, with very little subtly. One really odd aspect of the movie is the bleeping of expletives. Why include such language in a film made for TV if it’s going to get bleeped out?

Where the film does shine is in the casting of Miss Cleo and her family. Robin Allen, aka ‘The Lady of Rage’, is a dead-ringer for Miss Cleo. It’s uncanny how much she resembles the woman. She also turns in a really nice performance as a no-nonsense woman who is proud of her heritage (and even though Los Angeles-born Harris claimed she was from Jamaica, she had Jamaican roots) and fiercely protective of her family (the actresses playing her daughters also do a nice job). Allen and Reid have perfectly recreated the infamous infomercials, and she just perfectly embodies the character of Miss Cleo, nailing her famous ‘Call me now!’ catch-phrase. TV movies like this are routinely overlooked for awards consideration, but Allen is perfection and deserves some recognition. Daphne Maxwell Reid, Tim’s wife, is also very good, very natural as Harris’ mother, at first upset by what her daughter is doing (especially after some friends come at her for their high phone bills and the perceived parodying of their Jamaican culture) but quickly flying across country to support her when the law starts coming after her. Jaida Standberry is also very good as a caller who finds a connection with Miss Cleo, who gives her the confidence to pursue her singing career. These performances help elevate the movie, but in the end it just feels a bit hollow.

Perhaps that’s why Lifetime opted to air the 2022 MAX Original documentary Call Me Miss Cleo immediately after the movie (the doc is also still streaming on MAX). Directed by Celia Aniskovich and Jennifer Brea, Call Me Miss Cleo really dives deep into the life of Miss Cleo, with interviews from the people involved with her play that got ripped off, PRN phone psychics, actors Raven-Symoné and Debra Wilson (who both did parodies of Miss Cleo on That’s So Raven and Mad TV respectively), and friends who knew her best (though curiously there is zero mention of her children). Produced after her death, the film benefits from a video interview Harris did (in character) that is used throughout the film to help illustrate the story of Miss Cleo and PRN (and as one would expect, neither Feder or Stolz would comment on camera but gave a statement that Harris had absolutely no part in their deceptive pricing practices). What we learn in the documentary is that after the fallout from the PRN scandal, Harris took to a life of seclusion until her godson got her out of the house and to a party with friends. Harris became a major ally to the LGBTQ community in Florida and eventually came out herself, with two of the interviewees eventually revealed as her partners. Each of those closest to her firmly believed Harris was gifted with some psychic energy, and they all also noted that she never dropped the Jamaican accent while in their presence. What could have been a scathing expose of Youree Harris turns out to be a loving portrait of a woman who got caught up in something much bigger than herself and did what she had to do to survive the aftermath. It’s just a shame there was no participation from her children, but the people who do speak of her have obvious, deep love for their friend making Call Me Miss Cleo the perfect companion piece to the TV movie.

Miss Cleo: Her Rise and Fall has a run time of about 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.