Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

Continued from page 51 TWO GIRLS courses slowly down — down her smooth cheek. And her lips, in that magical second of enlightenment, understanding and self-realization, curl into a sweet tiny smile. As you leave the movie your boy friend says, “You know, that Sue Lyon — I bet in real life she’s Miss Innocence herself. And Patty Duke — who knows, in real life she might run around with more guys than anyone in her crowd. Actresses fool you. . . .” You explode, “That’s silly! An actress can’t turn on an emotion or play a part if she didn’t have some experiences like that in her life! Sue Lyon must be something like Lolita and Patty Duke must be sweet and innocent.” And you insist, “I’ll bet I’m right — only there’s no way to find out, really . . How to tell . . . No way? Oh, but there is! A simple way — you talk to the stars in question, you talk to their friends, and you read what people who know them have written about them. You put all your findings together, and you reach certain conclusions: What kind of a girl is Patty. What kind is Sue. When we talked to each of the girls, we put similar questions to them. And the answers—well, that’s our story. Our first question: “Why were you selected by the producer to play the lead in this picture, and what did you have to do to get the part?” sue lyon. The need for money— to make life easier for her widowed mother and for her three brothers and her sister — turned twelve-year-old Sue’s footsteps towards show business. Sheer luck — and the fact that she looked like what the producer thought Lolita should look like — won her the role of the pre-teen temptress. It was her older sister Maria, knowing how hard it was for their mother to support all of them on her wages as a hospital housemother, who first took Sue on the rounds of photographers’ studios and TV stations. Sue appeared on TV in bit parts in “Dennis the Menace” and “The Loretta Young Show” and graduated to doing a cosmetics commercial. Not exactly the background and training to prepare her for the most soughtafter role for a teenager in movie history. But then again, Sue was driven on by acute financial need and, perhaps, by the deep, barely conscious feeling that someplace, somehow, her father, who died when she was ten months old, would be proud of her. The miracle happened. As co-producer and director Stanley Kubrick tells it: “From the first, she was interesting to watch even in the way she walked in for her interview, casually sat down, walked out. She was cool and non-giggly. She was enigmatic without being dull. She could keep people guessing how much Lolita knew about life. When she left us, we shouted to each other, ‘Now if she can only act!’ ” A screen test proved she could act. The year-long search for Lolita ended when Vladimir Nabokov, the author who had originally created the character of the subteen, bubble-gum-chewing seducer of older men and had then re-created her in the screen story, was bowled over by Sue and pronounced her “the perfect nymphet.” In Venice, a Photoplay reporter asked Sue, “How did you get this part?” A: Well, I went on interviews for it— and then I did a reading and then I did a screen test with Mr. Mason. Q: That was it? A: Yes, that was it. Q: How many girls tested for the role? A: I don’t really know— some say 500. some say 800. I’m not sure. That’s the only thing that Sue doesn’t seem sure of. As for everything else, she seems as sure of herself as the producers and writer were that she was Lolita. patty duke. The fact that fifteen-yearold Patty Duke is an actress is apparent as soon as you enter the New York apartment of John Ross, her manager, and see the white packages of matches, embossed in gold with her name, lying casually on the table. But this fact, like so many other “facts” relating to her, turns out to have a completely different significance as soon as young Patty starts talking. She hadn’t ordered the matches made up for her especially; on the contrary, they were given to her by a hotel in Atlantic City where she and the Rosses and “five other children” sometimes go to swim and to get away from the city. “If you had any three wishes in the world and you were guaranteed they would come true, what would they be?” I asked. “I’d want to go on with my career and have it be very successful; I’d want my new TV series, ‘The Patty Duke Show,’ to be a big hit; and — and—” “Yes?” I said, both pleased and disappointed that Patty Duke seemed completely caught up in her career. “HI tell you later” “And — I’d like to think about the third wish and tell you later,” Patty said with a sweet smile. When the third wish did come — much later in the interview — my notion that Patty was a career-obsessed little girl was also to be shattered. But for the moment the problem was to find out why she was selected by the producer to play young Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker.” Like Sue Lyon, pressing financial need had turned Patty to show business. Patty’s mother had to work in a restaurant to support her three children. So that when the little girls’ older brother Raymond told his sister that some people called the Rosses wanted to met her, and that if everything went all right they might be interested in helping her to become an actress, she jumped at the chance. Maybe she could make some money and give it all to her mother — well, almost all, there might be a little bit left over to buy herself one pretty dress. What Patty didn’t know — and what Ray PLAY RIGHT AWAY! Send For Free Book Telling How Easily You Can Learn Piano, Guitar, Accordion, ANY Instrument This EASY A-B-C Way NOW IT'S EASY to learn music at home. No tiresome “exercises." No teacher. Just START RIGHT OUT playing simple pieces. 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