Emma Stone will star as John F Kennedy’s lesser-known eldest sister Rose Marie “Rosemary” Kennedy, who was lobotomised at the age of 23 after developing violent mood swings that threatened to embarrass her famous family.

Letters From Rosemary will be based on a screenplay by first-time screenwriter Nick Yarborough which deals with events leading up to the lobotomy and its aftermath, according to Variety. The film does not yet have a director attached but is being backed by the Anonymous Content production company, which helped bring 2016 Oscar winners Spotlight and The Revenant to the big screen.

Rosemary Kennedy, the firstborn daughter to Joseph Kennedy, Sr and Rose Fitzgerald, was one of the first mental health patients to undergo the controversial prefrontal lobotomy procedure in the US. The results of the operation were so disastrous that she spent the rest of her life in a facility called St Coletta of Wisconsin, having been left with a mental age of two.

Kennedy calling ... Emma Stone. Photograph: Vera Anderson/Getty Images

The biopic’s title may refer to the many diaries and letters written by Rosemary in her teens and early 20s, which were published in 1995 by former Kennedy family secretary Barbara Gibson. They reveal the young woman lived a full life, attending teas, dress fittings and social events. Rosemary was even presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during her father’s service as US ambassador at the time of the second world war.

In the wake of the botched operation, the famously ambitious Joseph Kennedy Sr told journalists that his daughter taught “retarded” children. Later, the family described Rosemary as “mentally retarded” or “handicapped”, rather than explaining what had happened to her. Many believe Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded the Special Olympics as a result of fondness for her sibling.

Stone will next star in Damien Chazelle’s musical romance La La Land, opposite Ryan Gosling, and has been cast in the tennis biopic Battle of the Sexes.