Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

was most prominent in my mind.” To the rejoinder, “That would be pretty good easting!” Sue said. “Thanks.” Is Sue, in fact, describing herself and what is happening to her, as the Lolitaimage begins to jell? It is certain that she can’t do anything about (and who would want her to?) hiding her natural beauty. “When she was thirteen,” writer Liza Wilson says, “Sue blossomed out into a young beauty with blond hair and huge blue eyes and a figure that caused boys in the school yard to whistle.” But she can do something about jumping off the personal appearance, party-going, publicity treadmill she’s on and returning to solid earth, before it’s too late. Tame has changed Sue Fame (perhaps the better word would be “notoriety”) has already changed Sue. Jon Whitcomb finds her “a monument of composure and self-assurance” and recalls that other young stars he knew at the beginning of their careers (Sandra Dee and Tuesday Weld, to name two) “were children by comparison.” Just before her sixteenth birthday, Sue presided at a party in her honor at the Tower Suite in New York City, immediately following the premiere of “Lolita.” She couldn’t attend the premiere because of her age, so she slipped away to a bgatnik coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Then came back for the party — most mature in a sophisticated dress — and shook hands with 500 celebrities who were congratulating her as if she’d been in the limelight all her life. The star-treatment — can Sue survive it? At the Grand Trianon room of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel at a party after the Hollywood and West Coast “Invitational Preview” of “Lolita,” Sue was asked to pose again and again with Vince Edwards, even though Vince’s steady girl, Sherry Nelson, was sitting nearby. The following day, of course, the papers were full of a “romance” between Lolita and Ben Casey. At the same party, George Hamilton left his fiancee, Susan Kohner, walked over to Sue, kissed her hand and danced away with her. A few days later the Kohner-Hamilton engagement was broken off. The pattern of that evening as recorded by Sidney Skolsky (“Sue is photographed almost as much as she is in ‘Lolita.’ Sue Lyon is sitting. Standing. Bending. Smiling. Pleasant. Sitting. Standing. Shaking hands. Sitting, etc.”) is repeated in London, Venice, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne and Honolulu during her world tour of personal appearances in connection with international openings of the film. When asked, “Doesn’t it bother you, losing your privacy this way?,” Sue answered, “I haven’t lost all of it.” In two respects, at least, Sue is cut out of the same cloth as her silver screen counterpart Lolita: in her attitude towards money and in her reactions to school and culture. To the question “What do you like best about work?”, Sue answers bluntly, “The money. It’s the quickest way I know of to make a lot of money, fast.” While she’s definite about money, she’s diffident about school. Once upon a time, before “Lolita,” Sue went to Micheltorena Elementary School and to Starr King Junior High. But she wasn’t much interested in classes and goofed off to the movies. Public school’s behind her now. Because she travels so often, she has a private tutor (she is a whiz in math, but hates foreign languages). Does she miss the old gang with whom she’s lost contact during the last two years? Not much. Sue says, “I see them sometimes. They accept me same as ever. No big deals. Of course, there are always a few who are impressed. The new kids I meet seem to think I am conceited.” What did Sue do during her spare time and on weekends while she was on location making “Lolita” in London for five months? Well, she went to movies — just as she’d done back when she was in public school. And she took up horseback riding. Museums? She feels about them as she previously felt about reading the novel, “Lolita.” Nothing. Her mother confesses that Sue was “bored stiff at the Louvre,” while daughter chimes in with a line worthy of Lolita , “I'm not much for sight-seeing or going to the statues.” Lolita and Sue, Sue and Lolita. Sometimes they’re interchangeable. As writer Jack Hamilton says, “She seems to have the same sly, secret joke against the adult world she invested in her character of Lolita . . .” patty pluck. It can j)e safely said that Patty Duke in real life is very much like the character of young Helen Keller who broke out of a world of wildness and strangeness and was transformed into a child of sweetness and innocence. So close did the young actress feel to Miss Keller that during the run of the play she made a special pilgrimage to the blind woman’s home at Aachen Ridge, Connecticut. This was the high point in Patty’s young life, and when she talks about it today, her eyes light up. “When we came to the door,” Patty recalls, “a nurse answered. Miss Keller hadn’t seen any other people for a while, and she was just dying to communicate with someone. “Suddenly, I heard a movement on the stairs. I looked up and saw the most wonderful thing. There was Miss Keller coming down the staircase alone. She was so graceful, so beautiful. She was wearing a blue dress, a string of pearls, a lovely pin and a pair of red shoes. Her white hair was beautiful, but the thing I remember most are her eyes. Happy eyes, laughing eyes. And I realized that although she was blind she could see everything. “I spoke into her hand with my fingers, using deaf and dumb language. I told her how much I liked her red shoes. She was delighted. Of course, she’s never seen red shoes, but people tell her red shoes are pretty so she wears them whenever she dresses up for company. “We walked around her garden and she would touch each plant, flower and tree and then tell me its name. She showed me where she had just planted tomatoes. “With my fingers, I told her about my dog and my schoolwork and about how I like chocolate cake. I asked her about a lovely light burning in her garden, and she answered that it was an Eternal Light that was always lit, a gift to her from the people of Japan. “When I finally left her, I couldn’t get out of my head the memory of how youthful and exciting she was at eighty — and how much she does for other people by just being alive. Maybe I can be a little YOUNG THROATS FOR OLD Just tie our amazing chemical pad on, and proceed with normal activity. Guaranteed safe and effective. Use one (1) hour a day for 30 days. Better than most plastic surgery. 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