Screenland Plus TV-Land (Jul 1959 - May 1960)

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DIANE VARSI continued When people asked her why she lived as a hermit all OFTEN puzzled and dismayed by the torments of growing up, like officer. Then she walked stiffly into the plane without turning around to wave goodbye to her companions. A few hours later, still taut, nervous and harassed, Diane was in San Francisco, where she was born, to visit with relatives and a few old schoolmates. Those who tried to question her were told, "I am definitely through with Hollywood." That night she was on another plane headed for the East — for the bucolic hamlet of Bennington, which she had never even seen before. It was, as some said, "a return to 'Peyton Place,' " the New England village which was the locale of her first starring picture. Hers was a frightening decision, an abrupt rejection of fortune and fame, and it was bewildering to everyone in Hollywood — except Diane herself. The day before, strange, moody, unpredictable Diane had shocked executives at 20th Century-Fox, where she was under long-term contract, when she informed them that she was leaving pictures "forever." "I don't want to act any more," she said. "Acting is destructive to me. I don't see any reason to be miserable just because other people say I should go on with my career." For Diane, her action was no sudden impulse. In one of the brief moments when she was willing to talk, she told reporters, so many youngsters in ferment, Diane was searching for some truth. "I've been thinking about this for weeks. It's strictly personal with me. I don't see any reason to explain what I'm doing, so my leaving will go unexplained. However, it is a well-thoughtout decision. It has nothing to do with the studio itself." Then, staring at the heap of clothing and personal possessions piled on the floor of her ramshackle house in Santa Monica's Rustic Canyon, she added, "I don't like some of the ways of Hollywood. But my reasons for leaving go even deeper. It is the performing itself I object to. If I have any talent at all, I will try to find some other outlet for it that will make me less unhappy." SEEMINGLY forgotten was the memory of her Academy Award nomination for her very first film, "Peyton Place." The girl who, only a short time before, had been a derelict and unknown, now had four big pictures to her credit, including the soon-to-be-released "Compulsion." Producer Jerry Wald had hailed her as "one of the most brilliant natural actresses I have ever known," and had already assigned her to a starring role in his new picture, "Return To Peyton Place." Yet, in a gesture as puzzling as her own confused, embittered life, Diane, at 21, was overnight abandoning everything: fame, 16