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Speaker 1: Trigger warning. This podcast involves discussions of child sexual abuse

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Speaker 1: and pedophilia. Listener discretion is advised. A couple of years ago,

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Speaker 1: something interesting happened on January. The Women's March happened, And

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Speaker 1: we could talk about the surrounding flaws of the Women's

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Speaker 1: March all day, but it happened, and in the Women's

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Speaker 1: March was huge. The reason that was was because the

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Speaker 1: Me Too movement was firing on all cylinders. The beginning

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Speaker 1: must argue with an investigation published in October detailing the

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Speaker 1: extensive sexual misconduct and many times rape, committed by Hollywood

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Speaker 1: mogul Harvey Weinstein. The story made a huge impact both

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Speaker 1: in Weinstein's life he's in prison now, as well as

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Speaker 1: in our culture. Women were encouraged to share their experiences

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Speaker 1: of abuse objectification, and there was an outpouring of traumatic stories,

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Speaker 1: some of which resulted in consequences for the perpetrators and

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Speaker 1: others that did not. Most of the cases you probably

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Speaker 1: remembered from around this time concerned the wealthy and powerful,

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Speaker 1: but there were also countless examples of women talking about

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Speaker 1: harassment or abuse they had been subjected to in their

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Speaker 1: everyday lives. No matter how you feel about the movement.

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Speaker 1: There's no denying it was huge, and the Women's March

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Speaker 1: in January reflected that. Natalie Portman, who we discussed in

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Speaker 1: our last episode, spoke at this march, getting specific about

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Speaker 1: how she had not just been sexually harassed while working

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Speaker 1: in Hollywood, but harassed beginning when she was a child.

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Speaker 1: She says this, I turned twelve on the set of

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Speaker 1: my first film, The Professional. I was so excited at

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Speaker 1: thirteen when the film was released in my work and

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Speaker 1: my art would have a human response. I excitedly opened

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Speaker 1: my first fan mail to read a rape fantasy that

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Speaker 1: a man had written me. A countdown was started on

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Speaker 1: my local radio show to my eighteenth birthday, euphemistically the

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Speaker 1: date that I would be legal to sleep with. Movie

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Speaker 1: reviewers talked about my budding breasts and reviews. I understood

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Speaker 1: very quickly, even as a thirteen year old, that if

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Speaker 1: I were to express myself sexually, I would feel unsafe

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Speaker 1: and that men would feel entitled to discuss and objectify

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Speaker 1: my body to my great discomfort. So I quickly adjusted

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Speaker 1: my behavior. I rejected any role that even had a

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Speaker 1: kissing scene, and talked about that choice deliberately, and interviews

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Speaker 1: I emphasized how bookish I was and how serious I was,

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Speaker 1: and I cultivated an elegant way of dressing. I built

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Speaker 1: a reputation for basically being prudish, conservative, nerdy, serious in

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Speaker 1: an attempt to feel that my body was safe and

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Speaker 1: that my voice would be listened to. At thirteen years old,

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Speaker 1: the message from our culture was clear to me. I

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Speaker 1: felt the need to cover my body and to inhibit

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Speaker 1: my expression and my work in order to send my

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Speaker 1: own message to the world that I'm someone worthy of

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Speaker 1: safety and respect. And at the time the speech was given,

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Speaker 1: it was received extremely well. Websites like Refining nine declared

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Speaker 1: the Women's March wants to change the world. Will we

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Speaker 1: let it? BuzzFeed announced thousands took to the streets for

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Speaker 1: massive women's marches around the world. Teen Vogue shouted from

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Speaker 1: the rooftops. Women's March protesters took to the streets for

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Speaker 1: many different reasons. So we did it, Feminism win. Someone

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Speaker 1: tried to make me wear one of those ugly as

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Speaker 1: hats right well. The next day, January one, all of

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Speaker 1: those websites I just cited posted these headlines are Millie,

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Speaker 1: Bobby Brown, and Jacob Sartorius. Dating or just trolling us

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Speaker 1: fans think Millie Bobby Brown and Jacob Sartorius are dating.

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Speaker 1: Millie Bobby Brown just insta confirmed her relationship with Jacob

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Speaker 1: Sartorius and I have butterflies. You have butterflies? Okay, boomers.

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Speaker 1: Millie Bobby Brown is the star of Netflix's Stranger Things

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Speaker 1: and was only thirteen years old at the time. These

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Speaker 1: stories are rich, and they're speculating that she was dating

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Speaker 1: fifteen year old TikTok star Jacob Sartorius the day after

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Speaker 1: Natalie Portman made that speech. I understood very quickly, even

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Speaker 1: as a thirteen year old, that if I were to

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Speaker 1: express myself sexually, I would feel unsafe, and that men

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Speaker 1: would feel entitled to discuss and objectify my body to

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Speaker 1: my great discomfort. Millie Bobby Brown just insta confirmed her

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Speaker 1: relationship with Jacob Sartorius and I have butterflies, you guys.

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Speaker 1: And this wasn't even the first time that this had

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Speaker 1: happened to Milly Bobby Brown. When season two of Stranger

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Speaker 1: Things came out on Netflix, in the Internet was flooded

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Speaker 1: by grown as people commenting on how much older she looked,

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Speaker 1: how she's grown up. Before Our Eyes movie reviewers talked

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Speaker 1: about my budding breasts interviews. This same thing happens to

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Speaker 1: nearly any child, but growing up in the spotlight. Now.

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Speaker 1: I'm not claiming here that Hollywood driven feminism is the

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Speaker 1: most important thing in the world. In fact, I find

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Speaker 1: it to be pretty frustrated and over commercialized and lacking

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Speaker 1: all intersectionality more often than not. But it's on this issue,

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Speaker 1: the treatment of underage performers in particular, that I feel

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Speaker 1: like it's been pretty undercovered in the media, probably because

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Speaker 1: the media was one of the primary forces perpetuating it.

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Speaker 1: And the dissonance of that is demonstrated through this story

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Speaker 1: from just three years ago, a story that was published

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Speaker 1: the day after what was supposed to have been the

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Speaker 1: largest feminist reckoning of our lifetimes. The day after, Here's

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Speaker 1: what my friend and yours, Marrow Wilson, who played Matilda

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Speaker 1: and was in Mrs. Doubtfire, had to say about Millie

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Speaker 1: Bobby Brown's exploitation back in. Commenting on a child's body,

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Speaker 1: whether in a positive or negative way, in a sexualizing

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Speaker 1: or pitying way, is still commenting on a child's body. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's coming from someone who has lived it. How

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Speaker 1: many grown actors who endured this level of bodily and

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Speaker 1: personal scrutiny need to bring this up without media forgetting

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Speaker 1: the lesson literally overnight. It's pretty common knowledge what an

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Speaker 1: exceptionally difficult task it's been to get a productive conversation

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Speaker 1: about how we treat children in the media, whether we're

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Speaker 1: talking about stranger danger or with working child stars. As always,

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Speaker 1: the type of child focused on betrays those American prejudices.

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Speaker 1: The focus on able bodied, upper class white children are

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Speaker 1: still the stories and stars that received the most focus.

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Speaker 1: And on top of that, in Hollywood, it's been historically

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Speaker 1: nearly impossible to report on child exploitation, in spite of

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Speaker 1: constant whispers that it takes place at an alarming rate.

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Speaker 1: One of the only documentaries on this subject, Amy Berg's

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Speaker 1: documentary An Open Secret, gained millions of views when it

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Speaker 1: was released for free online since it had never ever

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Speaker 1: found a formal distributor. Studios with money do not find

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Speaker 1: making these experiences available to a wide audience to be profitable.

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Speaker 1: The ability to address the issue meaningfully is further complicated

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Speaker 1: by the Q and On Death cult making escalated claims

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Speaker 1: that literally every powerful person in the world, they do

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Speaker 1: not like is a child sex abuser, making it even

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Speaker 1: more difficult to get these stories told responsibly. Make no

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Speaker 1: mistake Q and on logic as it pertains to this

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Speaker 1: issue especially, only makes it more difficult for actual child

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Speaker 1: sex abusers to be reported on and punished. So, yes,

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Speaker 1: there is a ton of responsibility on the capitalistic structures

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Speaker 1: that exploit child performers and refuse to take a look

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Speaker 1: in the mirror in order to protect those performers. But

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Speaker 1: there's also a great deal of complicity in us, the

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Speaker 1: consuming public. Because yes, it is wrong of media outlets

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Speaker 1: like Refinery twenty nine teen, Vogue, and BuzzFeed to publish

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Speaker 1: these stories, but a major contributing factor to why they

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Speaker 1: publish these stories is because people click on them. Now,

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Speaker 1: I'm not putting teenagers on blast who want to know

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Speaker 1: more about start of their age. I'm talking about weird

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Speaker 1: adults who see the phrase thirteen year old having a

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Speaker 1: boyfriend gives me butterflies and being like, damn, got to

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Speaker 1: know more about that. And I'll be honest, I've probably

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Speaker 1: been this person at some point. Maybe you have to.

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Speaker 1: It's so normalized in pop culture to over expose public figures,

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Speaker 1: and I funk with celebrity, gossip and culture. It's fun

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Speaker 1: as hell, but speculating on the love life of a

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Speaker 1: middle schooler is ghoulish and his natal amportment articulated very clearly.

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Speaker 1: This absolutely affects how that meddle schooler grows up and

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Speaker 1: perceives themselves in the world. Some of these sites end

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Speaker 1: up realizing the cognitive dissonance of the stories they've published,

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Speaker 1: particularly Refinery twenty nine, and that site vowed to not

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Speaker 1: comment on the bodies or romantic lives of adolescents anymore. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: other media outlets criticized the stories having been written in

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Speaker 1: the first place, and guess what phrase they borrow to

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Speaker 1: describe how Millie Bobby Brown was treated. Hollywood's Lowlita complex

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Speaker 1: still a problematic issue for young female stars. Times finally

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Speaker 1: up for Hollywood's Lolita complex. The phrase lolita complex has

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Speaker 1: been used at length over the years, and has meant

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Speaker 1: slightly different things depending on the year the term is

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Speaker 1: coming up. Here, it's being used as the culture's tendency

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Speaker 1: to over sexualized teenagers, but in earlier decades the term

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Speaker 1: was more often applied to a sign blame to the teenager,

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Speaker 1: making the Lolita complex something the teenager has not us.

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Speaker 1: Why is she acting so sexy? We see a lot

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Speaker 1: of elements of this in the nineteen nineties. You might

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Speaker 1: remember that Rolling Stone magazine cover we talked about in

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Speaker 1: episode six where Britney Spears is posed in a bra

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Speaker 1: and tiny shorts, holding a teletubby and talking on the phone.

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Speaker 1: In media of this time, no one asked Rolling Stone

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Speaker 1: or the photographer why Brittany had been marketed that way. No,

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Speaker 1: they asked a teenage Brittany, why was she posing like that?

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Speaker 1: And what about the women who played the part that

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Speaker 1: the Lolita complex borrows its name from. Are these women,

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Speaker 1: who are largely underage performers at the time respond pountable

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Speaker 1: for how the media frames and exploits them In no,

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Speaker 1: of course not, who in the right fucking mind would

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Speaker 1: do that. But with the four low leaders we'll be

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Speaker 1: talking about today, they did. Filmmakers, directors and large systems

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Speaker 1: of power presented these low leaders to us. But they

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Speaker 1: wouldn't have done it if we, the general public, weren't

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Speaker 1: going to pay for it. So today we are talking

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Speaker 1: about and in conversation with four women who played Lolita.

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Speaker 1: This is Lolita Podcast. Welcome to the penultimate episode of

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Speaker 1: Lolita podcast, I'm your host Jamie loftus Today, a long

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Speaker 1: foreshadowed episode, a close look at the life and careers

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Speaker 1: of the women who have played Lolita on screen and

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Speaker 1: on stage over the years, and how playing the part

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Speaker 1: affected their life, both behind the scenes and through their

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Speaker 1: treatment in the media. We're gonna focus on four performers today,

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Speaker 1: the Lolita's of the stage and screen, ranging from nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty two to nine seven. These women are Sue Lyon,

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Speaker 1: Chris Gilmore, Blanche Baker, and Dominique Swain. So let's start

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Speaker 1: around nineteen fifty nine, talking about one of the adult

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Speaker 1: stars who shaped the original sixties look of Stanley Kubrick's Lolita.

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Speaker 1: There is one thing I want to mention before Sue

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Speaker 1: Lyons casting in nineteen sixty and it's a piece that

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Speaker 1: appeared in Esquire magazine in nineteen fifty nine by one

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Speaker 1: of the most famous feminist writers of the twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: Simone de Boivar. My mouth can't make French. The piece

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Speaker 1: is called Brigitte Bardo and the Lolita Syndrome. And okay,

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Speaker 1: it's not Lolita complex, but in de Boivar's definition, it

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Speaker 1: demonstrates pretty clearly what Lolita syndrome meant around the time

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Speaker 1: of the book's publication. She says this of Brigitte Bardo,

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Speaker 1: the bleached blonde French sex icon of the nineteen fifties

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Speaker 1: and sixties. Her clothes are not fetishes, and when she strips,

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Speaker 1: she is not unveiling a mystery. She is showing her body,

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Speaker 1: neither more nor less, and that body rarely settles into

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Speaker 1: a state of immobility. She walks, she dances, she moves about.

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Speaker 1: Her eroticism is not magical but aggressive. In the game

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Speaker 1: of love, she is as much a hunter as she

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Speaker 1: is a prey. The male is an object to her,

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Speaker 1: just as she is to him. So what's being described

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Speaker 1: here is very different than the Lolita syndrome that is

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Speaker 1: applied to Milly Bobby Brown in the two thousand tenths.

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Speaker 1: In the fifties and sixties, invoking Lolita's name indicated the

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Speaker 1: cultural image were well associated with by this point in

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Speaker 1: the show, that being a sexually appealing, girlish presenting person

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Speaker 1: who is sexually devious and alluring. It's only in the

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Speaker 1: last few years that the Lolita complex has been used

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Speaker 1: to describe the habits of the media and the public

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Speaker 1: applying these stereotypes. And it's with this energy that we

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Speaker 1: take it into the nineteen sixties to talk about our

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Speaker 1: first Lolita, the original Lolita. Sue Lion, the star of

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Speaker 1: Stanley Kuber's nineteen sixty two adaptation. Later in her life,

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Speaker 1: when the Adrian Line adaptation of Lolita was announced in

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Speaker 1: the nineties, Lion said, this my destruction as a person

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Speaker 1: dates from that movie. Lolita exposed me to temptations no

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Speaker 1: girl of that age should undergo. I defy any pretty

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Speaker 1: girl who is rocketed to stardom at fourteen in a

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Speaker 1: sex nymphed role to stay on a level path thereafter.

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Speaker 1: Lion passed in two thousand nineteen after her health had

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Speaker 1: been declining for some time, but there is much to

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Speaker 1: discuss about her life. Sue Lyon was born in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty six in Iowa as the youngest of five, and

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Speaker 1: her father died before her first birthday. She moved around

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Speaker 1: a little with her siblings and now single mother, who

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Speaker 1: worked at a hospital to support the family, and they

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Speaker 1: eventually landed in l A As a child, Sue modeled

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Speaker 1: for J. C. Penny and auditioned her parts to help

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Speaker 1: out her family. Her childhood best friend was Michelle Gilliam

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Speaker 1: later Michelle Phillips from the legendary nineteen sixties group The

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Speaker 1: Mamas and the Papas. Lyon had one TV appearance in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine and went on a number of auditions

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Speaker 1: before landing in a room with Stanley Kubrick in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty auditioning for Lolita. Here's how she described that experience

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Speaker 1: during an interview from the nineteen eighties. I went on

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Speaker 1: an interview to Stanley Kubrick and Jimmy Harris. And usually

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Speaker 1: in Hollywood, when you go on interviews, uh, they say hello,

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Speaker 1: what's your name? Thank you very much? For by these

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Speaker 1: two said things like, um, where do you date, where

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Speaker 1: do you go, what do you do? What time do

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Speaker 1: you come home? What did your mother think of that? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Where did you buy that dress? They asked me questions

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Speaker 1: that you know I would have to answer that I

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Speaker 1: did answer and so when I went, but I they

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Speaker 1: kept me in there for a whole hour. I was fourteen.

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Speaker 1: Lion Is said to beat out eight hundred other girls

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Speaker 1: for the role. She'd heard a little bit of the

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Speaker 1: book at Michelle's house when she was thirteen, and the

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Speaker 1: girls thought it was very scandalous. Lion only learned what

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Speaker 1: the full story was about from her mother, who described

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Speaker 1: it like this. Before I did the screen test, my mother,

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Speaker 1: uh told me the full story and made it very

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Speaker 1: clear so that I would know what was going on,

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Speaker 1: and uh she wanted to make sure I didn't have

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Speaker 1: any problems fits at. Mother was very protective of my feelings.

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Speaker 1: Lion's mother asked their pastor if Sue should take the part,

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Speaker 1: and the pastor said yes. And it's at this point

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Speaker 1: that Sue became the primary breadwinner of the family at

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Speaker 1: only fourteen. Many forget that Sue Lyon won a Golden

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Speaker 1: Globe for playing Lolita for Most Promising Newcomer, and that

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Speaker 1: she was supposed to have been poised to become an

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Speaker 1: enormous star, as we discussed in our episode on Stanley

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Speaker 1: Kubrick's Lolita, Lyon's history during the production and press tour

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Speaker 1: of this movie, and furthermore, her contract with Stanley Kubrick

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Speaker 1: and James Harris, the movie's director and producer, respectively, was

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Speaker 1: not quite this simple, as writer Sarah Wineman confirmed in

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Speaker 1: reporting for air Mail in the Fall of James Harris

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Speaker 1: had taken Sue Lion's virginity sometime during the production or

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Speaker 1: press tour of the movie. According to Michelle Phillips, Lion

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Speaker 1: was fourteen and Harris thirty two at the time it happened,

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Speaker 1: and Lyon was exclusively contracted to Kubrick and Harris for

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Speaker 1: the next six years of her career in the style

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Speaker 1: of old school Hollywood. Other sources of Wineman's described Lion

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Speaker 1: as closer to six teen when this occurred, but no

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Speaker 1: matter whose word you're taking, she was not the legal

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Speaker 1: age of consent and James Harris was her employer. While

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Speaker 1: this was not a big news story at the time,

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Speaker 1: Harris's pursuit of his underage star opened her not him,

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Speaker 1: up to criticism in the gossip media. Here's a column

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Speaker 1: from Dorothy Kilgallan in ninety two that you might remember

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Speaker 1: from a past episode Lolita Virus catching for Sue Lyon.

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Speaker 1: Sue Lyon, the Pretty Star of Lolita, has bowled over

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Speaker 1: her producer, James B. Harris. Her age is sixteen according

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Speaker 1: to her studio, and he's an old man of thirty three.

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Speaker 1: She prefers the company of mature men and James maybe

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Speaker 1: her cup of tea when she's a little older and

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Speaker 1: decide this proper to court her. Who is that story

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Speaker 1: putting the blame on? And this piece was published just

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Speaker 1: two weeks after Lyon turned sixteen. It's around this age

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Speaker 1: where Sue Lyon begins to suffer from depression, which led

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Speaker 1: to abusing drugs. Lyon struggled with both mental illness and

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Speaker 1: a lack of an adequate support structure for much of

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Speaker 1: her life, and this, compounded with the Hollywood luxury she

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Speaker 1: had been inducted into, made it difficult for her to

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Speaker 1: capitalize on what was undoubtedly a huge talent. It's also

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Speaker 1: important to note how Sue Lion's body was promoted and

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Speaker 1: framed by the press in the fallout of the release

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Speaker 1: of Lolita. We talked about the cinematography of the movie before,

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Speaker 1: but as we know, the marketing images for this movie

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Speaker 1: were infinitely more important in terms of the legacy it left.

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Speaker 1: It's these photos taken by photographer Bert Stern that live

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Speaker 1: on and framed Sue Lion for the public. Here are

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Speaker 1: some photos from this shoot. Sue in the front seat

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Speaker 1: of a car in hard shaped glasses, lips powdered, head

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Speaker 1: tilted back, Sue in the front seat, in the glasses

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Speaker 1: and a denim bikini, holding an American flag close to

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Speaker 1: her face. Sue in a denim shirt and sun hat,

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Speaker 1: sweeping in a field of dandelions, in bed, half naked

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Speaker 1: but the lollipop, in a comic book, in a lawn

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Speaker 1: chair with a lollipop and a much book. A photo

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Speaker 1: taken from the inside of a hotel room. Sue is

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Speaker 1: in the bikini at the window, bearing the heart shaped

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Speaker 1: glasses and looking right at the photographer. Pamphless in a

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Speaker 1: phone booth, applying whip class and talking on the phone.

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Speaker 1: And the photo you know already Sue in the heart

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Speaker 1: shaped classes, sucking on a lollipop, looking right at you.

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Speaker 1: And here's a sampling of how she was discussed on

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Speaker 1: magazine covers at age fifteen. Lolita in the Flesh, I

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Speaker 1: taught my child to act Lolita, Sue Lyon's mother talks,

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Speaker 1: I'm not Lolita actress. Sue Lyon hopes people know she

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Speaker 1: doesn't live her part. Sue Lion, so I'm young? Is

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Speaker 1: that a crime? And egregiously on the cover of Cosmopolitan, Lolita,

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Speaker 1: Sue Lion portrays the most controversial girl ever to hit

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Speaker 1: the screen. Right next to the headline fasting easier than dieting. Ye.

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Speaker 1: The story of Sue Lyon is a complicated one, but

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Speaker 1: this is indisputable. She was presented while a minor as

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Speaker 1: a sex object for the taking. In nineteen sixty three,

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Speaker 1: Sue Lyon got married for the first time at age seventeen,

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Speaker 1: to Hampton Fancher, a writer eight years her senior, who

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Speaker 1: was a well known man about town at the time,

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Speaker 1: dating starlets like Barbara Hershey before marrying Sue. He was

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Speaker 1: working as an actor at the time of the marriage,

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Speaker 1: but he's best known now as the co writer of

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Speaker 1: Blade Runner and Blade Runner. When asked by The New

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Speaker 1: Yorker about the marriage in Pantra had this to say,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of bad press. They accused me of

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Speaker 1: being a pompous, horned dog guy interested in only in

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Speaker 1: the world of yachts and private jets, which I thought

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Speaker 1: was totally unfair, but they were mostly right. There were

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Speaker 1: bets in Vegas about how long the marriage would last,

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Speaker 1: around nine months, as Pantra tells it, which overlaps with

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Speaker 1: Lyon's second film, John Houston's The Night of the Iguana.

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Speaker 1: It's one of lyons more famous roles and intersecting with

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Speaker 1: later Lolita history. The Night of the Iguana is a

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Speaker 1: Tennessee Williams movie adaptation where Sue Lyon plays a bleach blonde,

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Speaker 1: sexy teen who attempts to seduce an actor over twenty

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Speaker 1: years her senior, in this case Richard Burton. I can

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Speaker 1: talk to you like I'd never dream of going swimming

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Speaker 1: with Reverend Hodge gets back home. He's all. Lyon had

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Speaker 1: a difficult time with the press in what seemed like

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Speaker 1: never ending press tours from movies like Lolita and Knight

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Speaker 1: of the Iguana. As far as Lolita goes, she was

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Speaker 1: still promoting the movie two years after it was released,

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Speaker 1: not to mention that, following her divorce from Fancher, Lyon

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Speaker 1: was briefly linked again to James Harris, who casually said

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Speaker 1: this to a reporter in late nineteen Oh, we're not

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Speaker 1: getting married, if that's what you mean. But we were

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Speaker 1: very good friends, okay. And it's around this time that

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Speaker 1: Lion loses her older brother to a drug overdose and

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Speaker 1: reaches a breaking point in terms of how she was

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Speaker 1: treated both in the press and within her Hollywood contract.

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Speaker 1: She says this, in the eighties, I think Initially, before

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Speaker 1: they knew me, they felt that they were going to

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Speaker 1: build a star, and in the fashion of the old studios,

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Speaker 1: UH create an image and it would go on for there.

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Speaker 1: And but after they realized that and understood my motivation

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Speaker 1: for doing the film, and also I pointed out to them,

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Speaker 1: I said, you know, you've made a tremendous amount of

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Speaker 1: money off of me, and I think you owe me

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Speaker 1: the respect to be who I am. And now I

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Speaker 1: need to get on with the rest of my life.

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Speaker 1: I'll be happy to work again, but not every second.

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Speaker 1: I don't like people strangers asking me questions. I like

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Speaker 1: to be left alone. Really. I was once on a

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Speaker 1: television show, a talk show. My brother had just died

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Speaker 1: two days before that. The inner viewer opens his show

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Speaker 1: by saying, and now I was sixteen years old. He said,

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Speaker 1: did your brother kill himself? Because you played? I didn't

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Speaker 1: say a thing. I gotta had I walk up. I didn't.

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Speaker 1: I mean I had there was. I couldn't even dignify

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Speaker 1: that with with you know, don't you have good sense, sir?

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Speaker 1: I didn't. I had no words. I left that in

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Speaker 1: an ats typical of the reason that I can't be

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Speaker 1: a movie star. I never could. Lyon continued in movies

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Speaker 1: throughout the nineteen sixties, appearing alongside many big stars of

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Speaker 1: the time. She was in a John Ford movie, and

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Speaker 1: she was in a Frank Sinatra noir film in which

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Speaker 1: Lyon appears unconscious and a bra and panties on the poster. Also,

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Speaker 1: her face is barely visible, She's not even facing the camera,

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Speaker 1: also Funck Frank Sinatra. In the late eighties, Lion begins

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Speaker 1: to work in TV and TV movies. She spent some

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Speaker 1: time campaigning for Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy during his bid

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Speaker 1: for the presidency in nineteen sixty eight, and she gives

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Speaker 1: away her New York penthouse to people in need. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, she married photographer and former NFL player

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Speaker 1: Roland Harrison. Their interracial marriage sparked outrage in the US,

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Speaker 1: and they moved to Spain as expatriots to live comfortably.

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Speaker 1: This marriage ended by nineteen seventy two, and it gives

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00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:26,400
Speaker 1: Sue Lyon her only child, Nona Harrison. Roland Harrison wasn't

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00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 1: in the picture when Nona was a child, and so

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00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:31,719
Speaker 1: Sue Lyon raises Nona on her own. While struggling with

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Speaker 1: mental illness. They go back to the US, where Sue

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00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:39,480
Speaker 1: infamously married Cotton Adamson, who was incarcerated in a Colorado

407
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Speaker 1: state prison for robbery and second degree murder when they

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Speaker 1: married in nineteen seventy three. They met when Sue was

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Speaker 1: working as a volunteer in the Public Defender's office. Not

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Speaker 1: only did this marriage negatively impact Lyon's career and bring

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Speaker 1: on a wave of unwelcome press attention, but Adamson then

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00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 1: escaped prison, committed another robbery, and got arrested again before

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Speaker 1: she divorced him in nineteen seventy five. Lyon considered this

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Speaker 1: the death knell of her acting career, and after a

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Speaker 1: few more TV roles and small films, she completely retired

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Speaker 1: from Hollywood by night. It's said that her mental health

417
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,719
Speaker 1: continued to worsen, and she had a failed fourth marriage

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Speaker 1: before marrying Richard Rudman, a radio engineer, in ninety five

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Speaker 1: who would later say he'd been something of an enabler

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Speaker 1: in Sue's life, and from here I'd like to let

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00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 1: Sue's daughter, Nona take over. Nona Harrison Gomez still lives

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Speaker 1: in the l A area and run the company with

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Speaker 1: her husband, Painting murals, and she's written extensively in blog

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Speaker 1: posts over the years about her very complicated relationship with

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Speaker 1: her mother up until and after Sue Lyon's death in

426
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:46,960
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen. It's through known as writings that Sue

427
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: Lyon's extensive struggles with mental illness come into sharp focus.

428
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: Here is how Nona describes the overview of her early

429
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: life on her website. Born and raised in Los Angeles,

430
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:01,080
Speaker 1: Nonah's life began as a fairy to She was the

431
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 1: daughter of a famous actress, Sue Lyon known for Lolita,

432
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 1: an NFL player Roland Harris. Her father was absent for

433
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 1: most of her childhood, and being a biracial child, she

434
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 1: had questions at a very early age about why she

435
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: looked so different. By age twelve, Sue remarried and her

436
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,879
Speaker 1: relationship with her mother was never the same. Nonah was

437
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,160
Speaker 1: kicked out of her house and by the age of thirteen,

438
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:28,120
Speaker 1: she was taken to a halfway house. That same year,

439
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 1: her mother placed her in an insane asylum, where she

440
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: stayed for almost three months. That kind of betrayaled by

441
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: her mother, a woman she once idolized, broke known as

442
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: spirit in a way which would take years to recover from.

443
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:43,360
Speaker 1: Nona has written about her struggles with her mother over

444
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 1: the years and the ebb and flow of her mother

445
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: coming into and out of her life while battling a

446
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: lifelong struggle with mental illness all the way up until

447
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 1: her death. Here's a passage known a road in March

448
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:57,920
Speaker 1: for never leaving l A. She's been able to hide

449
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,119
Speaker 1: away from the Hollywood monsters, and I wouldn't want it

450
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 1: any other way. It is the biggest reason it's taken

451
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 1: me this long to finish. Protecting her is in my

452
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 1: d NA, no matter how much she might have hurt

453
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: me in the past, and this passage from July. We

454
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: are better strangers than we are family, and that's okay.

455
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,679
Speaker 1: Every once in a while on my blog posts, I

456
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: will have someone comment about how they wish my mother

457
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: and I would be together again, and I thank them

458
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: for the love they have in their hearts to think

459
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: if she sees me, she would somehow be different. Yeah.

460
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: Unhealthy people do not get better, not without a lot

461
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:37,479
Speaker 1: of work that they must choose to do. If they

462
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 1: stay unhealthy and become older, all they do is become

463
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 1: worse and more damaging. Nonah writes about how being separate

464
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:46,639
Speaker 1: from her mother was the only way it could be,

465
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: but still remember sue Lyon with a great deal of empathy,

466
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 1: acknowledging what a large role of her mother's mental illness

467
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,919
Speaker 1: had in keeping them separate. She still writes about her

468
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: mother on sue Lyon's birthday and on the anniversary of

469
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 1: her death, expressing a wish that her mom is in peace.

470
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: I think the way that Nona has kept this legacy

471
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:08,240
Speaker 1: is really beautiful, and I'll link to her work in

472
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: the description. She's doing really great work around social justice

473
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 1: as well that I'm excited to share. I'll add here

474
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: for clarity that after the abuse that she was subjected

475
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: to as a child, non is certainly not under any

476
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 1: obligation to make amends or forgive the behavior of an

477
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 1: abuse of parent, and her blog details her lifetime of

478
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: navigating that trauma, and as she healed and moved forward

479
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: with her life as an adult and an independent person,

480
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: decided on what her boundaries would be. I don't have

481
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: to tell you that this is a very individual kind

482
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: of journey. There is no right or wrong way to

483
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: navigate trauma, particularly childhood trauma, and it's a journey that

484
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: Nona has chronicled very honestly. She also did this really

485
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: cool transformative social media campaign in nineteen where people would

486
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 1: submit pictures of themselves wearing those trade had marked Sue

487
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: Lion heart shaped sunglasses while doing something that made them

488
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: feel like their most authentic self. So a campaign basically

489
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: to honor her mom's most iconic role. It's one of

490
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: the coolest transformative uses of the heart shaped glasses I've

491
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: ever seen. It was really cool. Sue Lyon passed away

492
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,640
Speaker 1: in a North Hollywood assisted living facility the day after

493
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: Christmas in two thousand nineteen. She survived by friends and

494
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: her daughter Nona. She was not remembered in the in

495
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: memorium reel at the Oscars less than two months after

496
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: she died. Some fucking thanks our next. Lolita is a

497
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: girl of the nineteen seventies. At the time, she went

498
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: by Annette Farah. Now she's known as Chris Gilmore. Gilmore

499
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 1: was chosen out of allegedly thousands of aspiring auditionees to

500
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: play the title role in Alan J. Lerner and John

501
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 1: Berry's Broadway Would be Spectacular. Lolita my love in one.

502
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: You know, the one that did this? Who is that

503
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 1: Piper exams. I got to speak with Chris in our

504
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: episode on stage adaptations of Lolita, But there's a lot

505
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: more to her story that I think ties into the

506
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: Lolita legacy. These days, Gilmore as a producer of indie films,

507
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: most recently a slasher movie called Blood Pageant starring Beverly

508
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: Mitchell and Snoop Dogg that comes out this year. She

509
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 1: and her son collaborate often, and when I did the interview,

510
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: he went down to their garage to get the original

511
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: poster of Lolita My Love that has Chris Gilmore's image

512
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: on it to get ready for our talk Who is

513
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: really sweet? Now? Records of Gilmore's performance as Lolita in

514
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 1: the show unfortunately don't exist. She was replaced in the

515
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: show for reasons we will be recapping here by Denise Nickerson,

516
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: who played Violet Beauregard and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate

517
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: Factory the same year. But Gilmore's life before Lolita was

518
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 1: just as fascinating traumatizing as her personal experience as learners

519
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: Lolita was. At fourteen, she was already no stranger to

520
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:01,600
Speaker 1: the ways that the entered payment industry was willing to

521
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 1: overseexualize someone under age because she was a child of Hollywood,

522
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: with a mother who was a dancer and a father

523
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: who ran late night clubs with musical acts. Her sister,

524
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: Sandy Farah, later famously dated Elvis Presley. Chris's first appearance

525
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 1: on screen was when she was only six years old

526
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 1: on the Alfred Hitgecock Hour. She's probably secret aged or something.

527
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 1: See and she's supposed to steal the plans for Daddy's

528
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: Secret Block. Other small rules followed, including an appearance on

529
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: The Brady Bunch, but her real passion was music. I'll

530
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 1: let her describe the kind of environment she grew up in.

531
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,959
Speaker 1: Oh well, well, I will tell you. I am a

532
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: big Allen Jay Learner fan growing up. I was a

533
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 1: poet Laurian in school and I loved writing. You know,

534
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: I loved rhyming so so I really loved him and

535
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 1: I was so jazz to work for him. Um, however,

536
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: he wrote, I guess I don't know if your listeners

537
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 1: will will know this, but he wrote My Fair Lady,

538
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: which you know gave Audrey Hepburn her big break. And um,

539
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 1: I knew my acting and I knew my singing. I

540
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: wasn't a very good dancer. My sister was an incredible

541
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: d answer, But I I kind of faked it through

542
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 1: because everything in those days still you had to sing

543
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: and dad. But um, I was discovered in my dad's

544
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 1: club every Monday night. Everybody was discovered. I mean the

545
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: Righteous Brothers got their break. Uh, Sonny and Share got

546
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: their after in the day. He had seven clubs, but

547
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: the one that was the most famous was called the

548
00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 1: Red Velvet. I got. I was offered a record career,

549
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: first with Mercury Records back then, and then with four Star,

550
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: and then my curb heard me sing and he was

551
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 1: I think he was working on the Osman Brothers. Is

552
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 1: about the time the Osman Brothers and the Jackson Five

553
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 1: were really jammed. By fifteen, Gilmore was in the recording

554
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: business with a record contract. This is a great opportunity

555
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: to play you a song, she sang as a tween again,

556
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: as it is now my personal anthem, You're a dum dumb.

557
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 1: So Gilmore's true ambition lay in music acting. Being a

558
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 1: connected team in the industry was more of a means

559
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: to an end for her, and this made the announcement

560
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 1: of auditions for Lolita My Love pretty goddamn exciting. This

561
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: was a chance for her to make her Broadway debut

562
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 1: in a leading role in a show by one of

563
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 1: the most famous lyricists of his generation. Remember Learners, the

564
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 1: guy who did Goddamn, My Fair Lady, Gigi Camelot. The

565
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: clout was a near certainty. Here's how Gilmore describes the auditions.

566
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: You're gonna laugh at this, really laugh at this. But

567
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 1: I turned down any role that I thought was risque, right,

568
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: And he says, you have an audition for a show

569
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 1: called Lolita. And I went on seven auditions. And I

570
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: don't know how I got into that. I didn't read

571
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: the book like you. I didn't know. I just knew,

572
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: you know, Alan Jay Lerner yea, and this we're kind

573
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: of you know thegue. So I thought, okay. And it's

574
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 1: a comedy, musical comedy. They have been looking on the

575
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 1: East Coast and the West Coast for someone to be Lovelita,

576
00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:10,919
Speaker 1: and they picked me and contracted me. But I wasn't

577
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 1: allowed to say anything, and they kept them they kept

578
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: the ads out that they were looking because they were

579
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 1: keeping the publicity going. I'll also refer you back to

580
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: a Vulture piece from eighteen by Sarah Weinman, who I've

581
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: interviewed on the show where she talks about the auditions

582
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 1: for Lolita My Love. Young actresses arrived with their mothers,

583
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: usually saying that they quote wouldn't like to be Lolita,

584
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 1: but would like to play the part unquote. You might

585
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 1: remember this description of what an audition for that show

586
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 1: was like, quote, don't wear makeup next time, said one

587
00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 1: of the producers to an audition er. I wanted to

588
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 1: look sexy. They replied, you look sexy anyways, he said, unquote.

589
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's a lot of similarities to what we

590
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 1: here described in Sue Lyon's description of Cooper auditions and

591
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: I want to be Layer. This audition culture was not

592
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: a phenomenon exclusive to the part of Lolita. It was

593
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 1: completely cooked into the auditioning process for girls and women,

594
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:12,840
Speaker 1: both underage and adult, whether we're talking about the casting

595
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:16,760
Speaker 1: of Scarlett O'Hara in the nineteen thirties or casting Aerial

596
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: in a Disney Live action reboot in the two thousand

597
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: tents in the two thousands, but Chris Gilmore gets the

598
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 1: part and takes a big risk by dropping her record

599
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: deal in order to do so, then going to New

600
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 1: York with her sister to begin rehearsals on Lolita My Love.

601
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: We discuss a lot of her onset experiences in our

602
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: episode of Lolita stage adaptations, but I want to remind

603
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: you the reason she is ultimately asked to leave the

604
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: production after months of script changes and behind the scenes

605
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: mess And keep in mind, up until about a month ago,

606
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 1: the only media narrative available about Gilmore's leaving the production

607
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 1: was that she was not good enough to play the part,

608
00:35:56,400 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 1: which was definitely not the case. Mr Learners said, you know,

609
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 1: we have to make it more risque, and uh, you know,

610
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: because because I well, but I'm jumping ahead though. I go,

611
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 1: what's what's the snaps on the top of my nightgown?

612
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: What the heck this? What did they do to it?

613
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: And nobody wanted to tell me, And this is a

614
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:17,239
Speaker 1: hell of a way to hit it on an actress,

615
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 1: but you know, um, I went around and then somebody said, well,

616
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,919
Speaker 1: Mr Learner will come in, and so he told me, well,

617
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 1: the snaps are in the top because you're gonna drop

618
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 1: your nightgown. You're gonna rip it off and drop it

619
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 1: in that scene. You know, I was singing, but this

620
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: is the problem in this world, you know, I was

621
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:40,760
Speaker 1: I trained method Meisner comedy improv I added, all I

622
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 1: I sang, and so I refused, and then I'll never

623
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:49,040
Speaker 1: forget the producer's last words. He said, well, you're too virtuous.

624
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:52,439
Speaker 1: So the choice is given to a fifteen year old

625
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:54,960
Speaker 1: that either she takes her clothes off on a Broadway

626
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: stage every night, regardless of how comfortable she feels, or

627
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 1: she doesn't to be on Broadway. They'll find a girl

628
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 1: who will do it, and by all accounts, that's exactly

629
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 1: what happened. This, of course, was devastating to Gilmore. She

630
00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: had become close with Alan Jay Lerner, was performing well

631
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:14,279
Speaker 1: in rehearsals and rolling with the script changes, and this

632
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:16,279
Speaker 1: was going to be her big break. But once she

633
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: wasn't willing to play ball learn her dropped her. Gilmore

634
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: describes the fallout of that experience. But then when we

635
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:28,400
Speaker 1: came back to California, UM, I heard that my understudy,

636
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 1: that she offered to do whatever they needed to do,

637
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,840
Speaker 1: and she was an amazing girl. She did the she

638
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:40,799
Speaker 1: played the Blueberry. Yeah, and uh, you know, I had

639
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,320
Speaker 1: a lot of respect for Denise, but I couldn't understand

640
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 1: why she accepted to do that, and so um they

641
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:50,359
Speaker 1: opened and broad on Broadway tried it out, and then

642
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: I got a call just a few days later, and

643
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 1: and uh through my agent, and my agent called us

644
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 1: and said they want you back. And I did my best,

645
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 1: and uh and like I like I said, Jamie, I

646
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 1: I'm a big advocate for UM women's rights and men's

647
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 1: rights to not be sexually harassed. Every every person you know,

648
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 1: I'm nobody should be sexually harassed or asked to do

649
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:21,759
Speaker 1: something uh in the entertainment industry that is they're not

650
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 1: comfortable doing. I don't know what the hell it was.

651
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: But I was a very innocent young woman, but I

652
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:35,319
Speaker 1: was sexually harassed so much by so many producers. I

653
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: could tell you names. You go really uh and writers

654
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 1: and and and uh. Never by the actors amazing. The

655
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:47,719
Speaker 1: actors were always amazing and we always got along great.

656
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 1: But it was producers, it was directors, it was writers,

657
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: and not only offered roles. And I'm not saying I

658
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: was sexually harassed and lolita, because I wasn't. I was

659
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 1: offered or I was told I was going to strip,

660
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: and that was a different thing. But still to me,

661
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: it's infringing on a sexual harassment, you know, especially as

662
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 1: a miner, that's absurd, that's ridiculous. And you know I

663
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 1: and this is the irony. Okay, Jamie, you can get this.

664
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 1: I come from this. You know this, this uptight family.

665
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:24,279
Speaker 1: You can't date. I don't care how hot that kid is.

666
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: An he starting on a series. You can't have coffee

667
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:30,839
Speaker 1: with him. It's wrong, you know. Yet yet all right,

668
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 1: they were okay with it. I mean, my father's literally said, well,

669
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 1: why why don't you just it's it's see it's a

670
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: body stocking. What's what's wrong with that? And it's like, Daddy,

671
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 1: you threw Davy Jones out of our club because he

672
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: wanted to take me out. And and you know, and

673
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 1: here you are telling me. You're telling me that it's

674
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: okay with you. If I stand in front of hundreds

675
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: of people and they see everything, you know, that's okay

676
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 1: with you. But you know, if it hadn't had the

677
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 1: subject matter it had, if it had been straight comedy,

678
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:10,399
Speaker 1: maybe I would have gone back. You know, I didn't

679
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: talk to Mr Lerner. I was very upset with what

680
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:18,760
Speaker 1: they did, because Johnny Carson wanted me on the Tonight

681
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 1: Show to talk about what they offered me and why

682
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 1: I quit, and they squashed that interview. But when they

683
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 1: squashed and canceled all of the things and even the

684
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 1: tonight show, that did it for me, you know, I mean,

685
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: my god, I was angry with them. I was very

686
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 1: disappointed that Mr Lerner in there there whatever powers to

687
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: be in that play, would would stop me from telling

688
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 1: what really happened, because I saw some write ups, I

689
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:53,640
Speaker 1: saw some things that weren't what really happened. She then

690
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: returned to l A with less than what she started with,

691
00:40:57,120 --> 00:40:59,919
Speaker 1: having sacrificed her record contract to take the part of Lowly.

692
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: She was about to turn sixteen and was back at

693
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 1: square one. She tried to get back into acting, only

694
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:09,799
Speaker 1: to be faced with more misogyny and more setbacks. And

695
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:11,919
Speaker 1: I was a little flashy, you know. I think that's

696
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: why I kept getting sexually harassed all my life, because

697
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 1: I you know, I had very big breasts and I

698
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:21,839
Speaker 1: couldn't help it. That's how God made me, you know.

699
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 1: And I was very curvacous, and and you know it's

700
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 1: not that I, you know, wore like really risque clothing

701
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,479
Speaker 1: or that I came on to anybody with that like lead. Look,

702
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: you know, here baby, you know, but but you know,

703
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: I was very innocent, but but it was just the look, right,

704
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 1: so that looked out in my way. And and Sissy,

705
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 1: God bless her. She did a great job with that role,

706
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:46,239
Speaker 1: so you know, nobody could do better than her. So

707
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:49,319
Speaker 1: you know, I lost it. But um, but then Ross

708
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: called me back and said, I have another role. I

709
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 1: want you in this film, and they loved your performance,

710
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: so would you take this other role? It was actually

711
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 1: the role that John Travolta was in, a very small

712
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:04,239
Speaker 1: role where the girls giving him head in the car

713
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 1: and then she bites his you know what off. So

714
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 1: after a while, Chris Gilmore decides it's time to switch gears,

715
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 1: and she begins working in a profession where she feels

716
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: she might be less judged. As well as to help

717
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:19,320
Speaker 1: prevent some of her own traumatic casting experiences. Chris Gilmore

718
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 1: gets into casting herself, but again she's met with a

719
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 1: lot of gendered resistance. That flashy rock look I had

720
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:29,359
Speaker 1: in the youth and the big breast, you know, it's

721
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:33,760
Speaker 1: still followed me everywhere I went, So people didn't always

722
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 1: have it easy to take me seriously as a casting

723
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 1: director or as a businesswoman. But I was. I was

724
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 1: always a nerded heart, you know, as the poet laureate,

725
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 1: I was like Alan Jay Learner. I get the big

726
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: rhyming books and trying to make rhymes, and I love language.

727
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 1: You know. The way my parents raised me is you

728
00:42:55,440 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 1: help each other. The most that I've had out in

729
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 1: my life is the the predators that have sexually harassed

730
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 1: me rather than help me when I was giving them

731
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 1: my talents, whether it was casting wise, writing wise, or

732
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 1: or um or acting um, you know, making me run

733
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: around a conference table, chasing me and then taking my

734
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:23,879
Speaker 1: name off of the guard gate of Warner Brothers because

735
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 1: I ran out of the room. What about what I

736
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:29,799
Speaker 1: can give you? I'm giving you casting and writing. Why

737
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 1: aren't you giving me some humanity and respect and kindness. Yes,

738
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 1: I had stopped writing and casting and I'm gonna cry

739
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:42,280
Speaker 1: over this one because the world disappoints me. But still

740
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: after pivoting her career, Gilmore is also mistreated as a

741
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:49,160
Speaker 1: casting director. So she becomes disillusioned and starts her own

742
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 1: production company where she can be her own boss and

743
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 1: she produces films. Today, Gilmore hasn't discussed Lolita My Love publicly,

744
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 1: and I'm grateful she was willing to speak with me.

745
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 1: She has overcome a ton of odds in her career

746
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:04,399
Speaker 1: and still reflects on her treatment during Lolita My Love

747
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: as a betrayal she experienced while still a kid, by

748
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: the composer, by the industry, and by the media. Nobody

749
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:16,840
Speaker 1: wanted anybody to know I quit the show. Nobody wanted

750
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: anybody to know that they asked me to strip, and

751
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 1: that that that it wasn't in my contract, And I

752
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 1: would guess that they would squash that information. And being

753
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: as strong and having you know, as much power as

754
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: they did in the industry, I really don't think that

755
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: the word got out there. Um what really happened. I

756
00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:41,839
Speaker 1: do know that that I was squashed. Like I told you,

757
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 1: I wanted to be on the Tonight Show. That would

758
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,919
Speaker 1: have been so cool. I can actually tell you I

759
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: was with Johnny Carson. How iconic would that be? But um, no,

760
00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 1: you know, so that I would think that all of

761
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:55,719
Speaker 1: the information out there doesn't tell anybody. I don't know

762
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 1: if you even read that. They begged me back, they

763
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 1: offered me a lot more money, that wanted me back.

764
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 1: They said, um that it was uh you know that

765
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 1: it failed without me and that they wanted me enough

766
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: to be there, you know, without the nudity. But but

767
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:14,840
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's even there, nor did I care.

768
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 1: So Chris Gilmore survives Lolita, yes, but like Sue Lyon,

769
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 1: her mistreatment behind the scenes and in the media end

770
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 1: up leading her to leaving acting altogether. I want to

771
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:28,439
Speaker 1: thank her again for speaking with me, and go see

772
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,319
Speaker 1: Blood Pageant this year. God damn it. I also want

773
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:34,200
Speaker 1: to mention a little bit about the actor who replaced Gilmore.

774
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,760
Speaker 1: Denise Nickerson, as you may remember from earlier episodes, played

775
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: the role of Lolita in Lolita My Love for even

776
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 1: less time than Chris Gilmore, really just long enough for

777
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 1: the show to flop in Boston one last time. Fortunately,

778
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 1: her existing resume as a child actor in Dark Shadows

779
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 1: and as Violet in Willy Wonka, as well as previous

780
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:56,920
Speaker 1: Broadway appearances were enough to hide the stain of Lolita

781
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:00,759
Speaker 1: My Love's failure. Nickerson had had it with Hollywood by

782
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,239
Speaker 1: the time she was twenty one, and she announced that

783
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 1: she was retiring, only to realize that her parents had

784
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: squandered every cent she'd ever made. For the rest of

785
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: her life, she worked as a receptionist and an office manager,

786
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: and went to conventions for Dark Shadows in willy Wonka

787
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 1: to make ends meet. She is said to have remained

788
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,279
Speaker 1: extremely optimistic and good natured by all accounts, and she

789
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 1: passed away in Aurora, Colorado after a long illness. She

790
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 1: was friends with the actors who played for Rucas Sault

791
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 1: and my TV all the way up until her death.

792
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:35,480
Speaker 1: Here's what Nickerson said in a two thousand interview. I

793
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:38,239
Speaker 1: had always wanted to be an attorney. However, because there

794
00:46:38,239 --> 00:46:40,800
Speaker 1: were no Jackie Coogan laws in New York, my parents

795
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:43,320
Speaker 1: had spent all of my money and it was a lot.

796
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:46,359
Speaker 1: In a slow year like nineteen sixty six, I made

797
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 1: forty six thousand dollars, but all of my money was

798
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:51,320
Speaker 1: gone and my hopes of being an ad journey were dashed.

799
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: So I'm twenty one with no money to go to college.

800
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:57,879
Speaker 1: I know I need to get a job. Back then,

801
00:46:57,920 --> 00:46:59,960
Speaker 1: you didn't need a college degree to get a position,

802
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: and it's much harder today. But I realized that if

803
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:06,440
Speaker 1: I started at the bottom and learned through quote on

804
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: the job training, I might be able to make it.

805
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:12,040
Speaker 1: I had decided I didn't want to act anymore. So

806
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 1: the first thing I did was go cut my hair,

807
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:17,359
Speaker 1: and my agent just lost his mind, as did my mother.

808
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:20,399
Speaker 1: But I went ahead and got a job. I've really

809
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,799
Speaker 1: had two very different lives. I had that life and

810
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 1: now I have this life, and I'm very blessed. I've

811
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 1: seen both sides of the coin. Are two Lolitas of

812
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:34,160
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. Like Sue Lyon, they both retire from

813
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:37,399
Speaker 1: the business while still in their twenties. So let's keep

814
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 1: it moving. Let's get into the eighties and to our

815
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:44,080
Speaker 1: third Lolita, the start of the inexplicable second Broadway adaptation

816
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:48,880
Speaker 1: of Nabokov's Lolita by Edward Albe Blanche Baker. We also

817
00:47:48,920 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 1: aired part of an interview I did with Baker in

818
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 1: our episode on stage adaptations. But I'm excited to get

819
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:57,359
Speaker 1: into her career a little more because she is the

820
00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 1: only actor who played Lolita in a major a bulk

821
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:03,680
Speaker 1: of blessed adaptation who did so as an adult, and

822
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 1: the ways that her story deviates from that of Lions

823
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:24,320
Speaker 1: and Gilmore's, I think are very interesting. Ye Blanche Baker

824
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 1: appears at a very interesting intersection of two generations of

825
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:31,919
Speaker 1: Lolita imagery. We discussed the details of the Edward alb

826
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:35,479
Speaker 1: production at length in episode five, and so I won't

827
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 1: rehash it too heavily here, but there's a lot about

828
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:40,800
Speaker 1: Blanche Baker's background that makes her unique in this saga.

829
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:44,759
Speaker 1: Blanche Baker's mother You're Gonna Love This played one of

830
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: the roles that is considered to be the visual inspiration

831
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:51,880
Speaker 1: and stencil for how Sue Lian was presented in Stanley

832
00:48:51,960 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: Kubrick's Lolita. So, if you will, a brief sidebar for

833
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 1: Blanche Baker's mother, actor Carol Baker. Carol was born in

834
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:02,319
Speaker 1: nine thirty one to a poor family and worked her

835
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 1: way up to study with famed acting coach Lee Strasburg

836
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 1: at the Actors Studio in New York in the nineteen fifties.

837
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:12,720
Speaker 1: Here she studies alongside the likes of Mike Nichols, Marilyn Monroe,

838
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:17,880
Speaker 1: future Cooper Clelita alumni Shelley Winters. Carol Baker studies method acting.

839
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 1: She's a serious fucking actor that really gets into the role,

840
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:23,800
Speaker 1: and she works in commercials for a bit before starting

841
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 1: to get roles on Broadway in her early twenties. She

842
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:30,040
Speaker 1: was then cast by Elia Kazan, who had already famously

843
00:49:30,080 --> 00:49:33,960
Speaker 1: collaborated with Tennessee Williams in a streetcar named Desire to

844
00:49:34,080 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 1: Play Baby Doll Apart, originally intended and styled very similarly

845
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: to Marilyn Monroe, and Baker becomes very famous for playing

846
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:47,040
Speaker 1: the titular character in Baby Doll, who likes through Lyon

847
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:49,360
Speaker 1: in Night of the Iguana is a character in a

848
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:53,279
Speaker 1: Tennessee Williams play that is a sexy young seductress. A

849
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:57,240
Speaker 1: quick note here, although Sue Lyon and Carol Baker both

850
00:49:57,280 --> 00:50:01,879
Speaker 1: played these naive ingenue roles adapted from Tennessee Williams texts here,

851
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to push the narrative that Tennessee Williams's

852
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: work was inherently sexist. By all accounts, and judging from

853
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 1: what I've seen of it, he wrote complicated female characters

854
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:14,840
Speaker 1: on a pretty regular basis, and while people have valid

855
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 1: opinions on patterns in his female characters, his female parts

856
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:21,880
Speaker 1: were very well regarded in their time, and there's certainly

857
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:24,319
Speaker 1: no denying that he was not an advocate of the

858
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:29,320
Speaker 1: stereotypical Hollywood beauty embodied by Lion or Carol Baker. Baker

859
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:33,239
Speaker 1: says in an interview that Tennessee Williams was advocating for

860
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:35,719
Speaker 1: a fat actress in the role of Baby Doll, but

861
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:38,359
Speaker 1: the studios would not allow it. I'll link some more

862
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 1: information to Tennessee Williams's life. In the description, the movie

863
00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:44,319
Speaker 1: goes like this. Baby Doll Megan as she is known,

864
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:47,239
Speaker 1: is a very naive nineteen year old who marries a

865
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:50,719
Speaker 1: poor alcoholic in the Mississippi Delta, who she refuses to

866
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 1: sleep with until she turns twenty. In the meantime, she

867
00:50:54,320 --> 00:50:56,640
Speaker 1: sleeps in a crib in the living room, and as

868
00:50:56,680 --> 00:51:00,200
Speaker 1: the plot goes, her sexually frustrated husband gets more and

869
00:51:00,320 --> 00:51:04,480
Speaker 1: more frustrated as his crib sleeping wife flirts with other men.

870
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:09,279
Speaker 1: Your child is me. That's why we've played the game

871
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 1: of hard and seek. It's a game for children. Well,

872
00:51:15,800 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 1: you don't have to go all the way home to

873
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 1: take a nap. You could take a nap here. It's

874
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:24,879
Speaker 1: going to rain anyhow. There's a small beddy in there,

875
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 1: crab you could call up at the slats down. It

876
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:37,919
Speaker 1: sounds weird because it is weird. But there's two things

877
00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 1: to note. First of all, Carol Baker is fantastic as

878
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:45,400
Speaker 1: Baby Doll, maybe too fantastic. But the second thing I

879
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:47,719
Speaker 1: want to tell you is that this movie was a

880
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: lot more talked about for its marketing of Carol Baker

881
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:55,040
Speaker 1: than about her actual performance. Here's what I mean. Just

882
00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:59,880
Speaker 1: before the movie's release, Warner Brothers approved a one ft

883
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 1: I billboard of Carol Baker in the promotional image for

884
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 1: Baby Doll, which was a ship united an image of

885
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:10,840
Speaker 1: a scantily clad Baker laying in a crib and sucking

886
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:14,080
Speaker 1: her thumb. This got a lot of attention, earning the

887
00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 1: movie a number of bands for indecency before its release

888
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: because of how Baby Doll is styled and presented in

889
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:23,880
Speaker 1: the marketing. Similar to what happens to both movie adaptations

890
00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:28,359
Speaker 1: of Lolita, this scandal turns Baker's image into an icon,

891
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 1: and while she received incredible reviews in this movie, the

892
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:34,759
Speaker 1: press mainly focused on her body. Another through line here,

893
00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: Carol Baker wins the Golden Globe from most Promising Newcomer

894
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: for this role, much like Sue Lyon does later for Lolita.

895
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:45,640
Speaker 1: Baker struggled within the studio system at Warner Brothers and

896
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 1: ends up buying out her contract there and turns out

897
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: great performances all throughout her twenties, though most of these

898
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:56,360
Speaker 1: lacked the high profile glamour of baby doll. In her thirties,

899
00:52:56,600 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 1: film producer Joseph E. Levine gloms onto the act dress

900
00:53:00,680 --> 00:53:04,440
Speaker 1: and pushes Baker to remarket herself as a bombshell again.

901
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: She appeared naked in Playboy in nineteen sixty four and

902
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:11,799
Speaker 1: started taking on very blonde, very glamorous roles like a

903
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:15,960
Speaker 1: lukewarm received Jean Harlow biopic. Baker was not happy with

904
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:19,360
Speaker 1: these roles or this styling, and wasn't shy about saying

905
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:23,120
Speaker 1: how controlling and possessive Levine was to her during this time.

906
00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 1: She gets out of her contract with him and Paramount

907
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:29,320
Speaker 1: and later says this, in the nineteen seventies, I was

908
00:53:29,400 --> 00:53:32,279
Speaker 1: under contract Joe Levine who was going around give me

909
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:36,480
Speaker 1: diamonds and behaving like he owned me. I never slept

910
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:39,120
Speaker 1: with him or anything, but everybody thought I was his mistress.

911
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 1: And Levine is very powerful in Hollywood, so Baker speaking

912
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:46,080
Speaker 1: out against how he was treating her essentially results in

913
00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 1: her getting blacklisted from the industry. So Carol Baker, in

914
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:53,320
Speaker 1: spite of being brand O level talented, has been kicked

915
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:57,640
Speaker 1: around in controlling contracts and sexed up time and time again.

916
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:00,080
Speaker 1: So she says fuck it. She divorces her house and

917
00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 1: she takes her kids to Italy and begins working in

918
00:54:02,680 --> 00:54:06,279
Speaker 1: the Italian film industry with some more freedom. It's there

919
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:09,960
Speaker 1: that she becomes a scream queen in Italian movies, slowly

920
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:13,520
Speaker 1: bailing herself out of Hollywood debt and becoming famous abroad

921
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:16,920
Speaker 1: for playing frequently murdered women who spoke Italian. Back in

922
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:19,719
Speaker 1: the US, she was teased for becoming the queen of

923
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:23,479
Speaker 1: Italian exploitation movies. But for Carol Baker, for the first

924
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:26,640
Speaker 1: time she had freedom and an income that she controlled,

925
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 1: and this period in her career gave her a lot

926
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:32,880
Speaker 1: of confidence. Feeling better about herself, she moves her family

927
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 1: back to the US in the seventies, returns to the

928
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:39,440
Speaker 1: stage and becomes a character actor in the eighties and nineties.

929
00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 1: Then she pivots again and becomes an author, and she's

930
00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:46,840
Speaker 1: still publishing books now. She rocks, But without doubt, the

931
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:49,880
Speaker 1: role that shaped Carol Baker's career and the moment that

932
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:54,360
Speaker 1: changed how the world perceived her was that one thirty

933
00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:58,200
Speaker 1: five foot billboard in Times Square that dictated how the

934
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 1: press treated her, how the public treated her, and how

935
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:04,560
Speaker 1: men within her own industry would be allowed to treat

936
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:07,239
Speaker 1: her so much so that she had to leave the

937
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:10,920
Speaker 1: country to continue in the profession she was extremely gifted in.

938
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 1: So that's Carol Baker and her daughter is actor Blanche Baker,

939
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: who was born in late nineteen fifty six and spends

940
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:21,359
Speaker 1: her childhood watching her mother act in Italy. Blanche goes

941
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:24,520
Speaker 1: on to also study Strasbourg in New York and her

942
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:27,799
Speaker 1: career gained momentum quickly. She won an Emmy in nine

943
00:55:28,719 --> 00:55:32,080
Speaker 1: at only two, started racking up roles on TV and

944
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:34,839
Speaker 1: in film, and so when the opportunity came to play

945
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:37,520
Speaker 1: Lolita in an Edward I'll be play, she couldn't say no.

946
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:40,480
Speaker 1: What sents her apart here is that she's twenty four

947
00:55:40,520 --> 00:55:43,840
Speaker 1: when this happens. But the situation Blanche finds herself in

948
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:48,040
Speaker 1: echoes the role that ends up overblowing her mother's bombshell image.

949
00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:51,719
Speaker 1: They were both talented and well trained actors. They both

950
00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:54,600
Speaker 1: got the opportunity to play the title role in a

951
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:57,920
Speaker 1: work from the most famous playwright of their respective eras

952
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:01,760
Speaker 1: Tennessee Williams. For Carol Baker and Edward Albe for Blanche Baker.

953
00:56:02,040 --> 00:56:05,719
Speaker 1: These roles are by all accounts played extremely well by them,

954
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:08,799
Speaker 1: but the inherent scandal of the production and the way

955
00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:12,759
Speaker 1: that they're styled ends up overshadowing their work and interfering

956
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:16,720
Speaker 1: with their lives. This irony is not lost on Blanche Baker,

957
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:18,680
Speaker 1: and she was kind enough to speak with me about

958
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:23,240
Speaker 1: her experience in albis Lolita, which closed in the blink

959
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:26,400
Speaker 1: of an eye on Broadway. Blanche Baker's humbered, by the way,

960
00:56:26,719 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 1: was Donald Sutherland. Here's a little of our talk. In Boston.

961
00:56:32,719 --> 00:56:36,640
Speaker 1: There were protests and for some reason, I know I

962
00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:41,040
Speaker 1: looked young, and there was some idea that I was

963
00:56:41,080 --> 00:56:45,080
Speaker 1: really a teenager playing this role. And I used to

964
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:47,920
Speaker 1: have to cross picket lines to get into the theater

965
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: starting in Boston. And to his credit, one of the

966
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 1: reasons I I believe I stayed in touch with Jerry,

967
00:56:57,440 --> 00:57:01,839
Speaker 1: who passed away recently. Um, but I'll never forget him

968
00:57:01,920 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 1: walking me across the picket lines in uh in New York.

969
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:10,040
Speaker 1: He knew that it was difficult if I had to

970
00:57:10,080 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 1: do this to get to my dressing room. Now, we

971
00:57:13,080 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: didn't run for that long. We managed to get the

972
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,960
Speaker 1: poster up in Sarti's for shows that closed quickly, but

973
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:21,360
Speaker 1: for I, you know, it was a two weeks or

974
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:24,200
Speaker 1: so in New York, and he would always he walked

975
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:26,480
Speaker 1: me in, and I thought that that was just a

976
00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:31,600
Speaker 1: lovely gesture. Those days, I MDB didn't post everybody's age,

977
00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 1: and that's true. All the roles I played, I was

978
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:40,520
Speaker 1: playing twelve all the time, So I really seriously said

979
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 1: most of my early roles with like a bandage wrapped

980
00:57:44,680 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 1: around my chest. And uh, I did the same thing

981
00:57:47,800 --> 00:57:51,240
Speaker 1: I had done us the Seduction of Joe tynan Um

982
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:54,320
Speaker 1: and I was playing Alan Alda's you know daughter, I

983
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:56,800
Speaker 1: was also playing twelve, So it was just the thing

984
00:57:56,880 --> 00:58:00,720
Speaker 1: I did even in Holocaust. She ages in that too,

985
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:05,080
Speaker 1: But I start off playing like nine or something, So yeah,

986
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 1: what is that experience like, being being asked to kind

987
00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:12,880
Speaker 1: of play so much younger um for so long? Was it?

988
00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:16,360
Speaker 1: I'm just so happy that you get an opportunity to work.

989
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 1: You're like, you know, I tell that to my students

990
00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:22,120
Speaker 1: all the time. Sheep, that door opens a crack, you

991
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:25,760
Speaker 1: gotta go barreling through it and then it changes throughout

992
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:28,720
Speaker 1: your life. Believe me, I am not playing twelve anymore,

993
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:33,840
Speaker 1: so you us, you know, and but at the time

994
00:58:33,960 --> 00:58:37,080
Speaker 1: that's sort of what I was doing, and so there

995
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 1: was some mistake about, you know, that I was still twelve,

996
00:58:42,320 --> 00:58:45,400
Speaker 1: even though I've been twelve for maybe ten years. I

997
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:50,000
Speaker 1: want to mention here at the phenomenon that Blanche is describing. Well,

998
00:58:50,040 --> 00:58:52,680
Speaker 1: it's great that actors are getting work, and it's very

999
00:58:52,760 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 1: much a job where you need to seize the opportunities

1000
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:58,720
Speaker 1: you're given. This falls neatly into a trend that still

1001
00:58:58,760 --> 00:59:03,520
Speaker 1: persists now and relates directly to Lolita adaptations. And I'm

1002
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:06,600
Speaker 1: talking about the tendency to cast people in their twenties

1003
00:59:06,720 --> 00:59:11,880
Speaker 1: or older to represent teenagers or younger. So thank Riverdale,

1004
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:17,400
Speaker 1: Think Greece, think really any TV show about teenagers. This

1005
00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:20,080
Speaker 1: isn't a slight to be actors at all. But this

1006
00:59:20,120 --> 00:59:23,880
Speaker 1: trend does condition us to think that underage characters look

1007
00:59:24,040 --> 00:59:27,480
Speaker 1: much more mature than they would in real life. As

1008
00:59:27,520 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 1: this pretends to Lolita, Most adaptations age Dolores Hayes up

1009
00:59:31,560 --> 00:59:35,800
Speaker 1: from twelve to fourteen at least, then cast an actress

1010
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:38,960
Speaker 1: slightly older than that to play her, then style her

1011
00:59:39,120 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 1: to look older than that, and in many ways that

1012
00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:46,520
Speaker 1: makes sense, because putting an actual twelve year old on

1013
00:59:46,640 --> 00:59:51,600
Speaker 1: stage in that role is extremely dangerous. But this instinct

1014
00:59:51,600 --> 00:59:54,240
Speaker 1: and trend shouldn't be ignored and is something I'm going

1015
00:59:54,280 --> 00:59:56,880
Speaker 1: to touch on in our last episode as well. I

1016
00:59:56,920 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 1: always think of the movie Eighth Grade here, where se

1017
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:03,480
Speaker 1: being an actor who is thirteen playing a thirteen year

1018
01:00:03,480 --> 01:00:07,160
Speaker 1: old character can be very jarring for audience members since

1019
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:11,200
Speaker 1: we're just not used to pop culture realistically reflecting what

1020
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 1: a child of that age actually looks and sounds like.

1021
01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 1: With Lolita especially, this creates a very complicated catch twenty two.

1022
01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:24,680
Speaker 1: This discussion is an absolute rabbit hole, and while I

1023
01:00:24,720 --> 01:00:28,160
Speaker 1: feel it is obviously safer and more ethical to cast

1024
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:31,720
Speaker 1: an actor of Blanche Baker's age playing younger, I have

1025
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:35,600
Speaker 1: to ask myself what does this normalize for an audience member?

1026
01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:38,640
Speaker 1: If we believe that she is fourteen, what does that

1027
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:42,840
Speaker 1: normalize for an audience member who is fourteen? On top

1028
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:45,440
Speaker 1: of that, that's not to say that being an adult

1029
01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:49,440
Speaker 1: at the time of playing Lolita exempt Baker from severe

1030
01:00:49,520 --> 01:00:53,280
Speaker 1: press harassment. It absolutely did not. Here's a little more

1031
01:00:53,320 --> 01:00:56,280
Speaker 1: of our interview. I was going to ask about about

1032
01:00:56,320 --> 01:00:58,720
Speaker 1: your mom as well of what had you kind of

1033
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:01,280
Speaker 1: taken away from her experience and to be able to

1034
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:05,000
Speaker 1: bring in, you know, experiences like these where you're being

1035
01:01:05,000 --> 01:01:07,160
Speaker 1: pushed back against for reasons I have nothing to do

1036
01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:11,240
Speaker 1: with you. She was the unhappy. It's at the height

1037
01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:16,840
Speaker 1: of her career. So, um, I was wary of it,

1038
01:01:16,960 --> 01:01:20,160
Speaker 1: and I fell into some of the traps of it.

1039
01:01:20,640 --> 01:01:25,960
Speaker 1: So you're swayed by what everybody says, and everybody thinks, uh,

1040
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:29,000
Speaker 1: it's gonna be tough. Um. I did take a step

1041
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:32,280
Speaker 1: back eventually from the business and you know, now much

1042
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:35,720
Speaker 1: happier teaching and uh, you know working when I do

1043
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:39,720
Speaker 1: work with a different point of view. Yeah. So and

1044
01:01:39,720 --> 01:01:42,280
Speaker 1: and this was kind of around the time of Lolita

1045
01:01:42,360 --> 01:01:46,640
Speaker 1: that you were kind of navigating that and figuring that out. Yeah,

1046
01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: because I was thrust in the spotlight, you know, even

1047
01:01:50,920 --> 01:01:53,600
Speaker 1: when I didn't give permission for things. I remember they

1048
01:01:53,600 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 1: put a picture from the show in Playboy magazine after

1049
01:01:58,080 --> 01:02:01,880
Speaker 1: I had turned down an interview, so I was like,

1050
01:02:02,040 --> 01:02:07,520
Speaker 1: wait a second, yeah, very small Yeah, and then, um,

1051
01:02:07,560 --> 01:02:10,160
Speaker 1: you know, I just wanted to be taken seriously. I

1052
01:02:10,200 --> 01:02:12,560
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of there are some press photos

1053
01:02:12,600 --> 01:02:14,640
Speaker 1: and I was in a slip and stuff like that,

1054
01:02:14,680 --> 01:02:16,600
Speaker 1: but that was not actually part of it. When I

1055
01:02:16,640 --> 01:02:19,640
Speaker 1: was in a bathrobe and I and and I brought

1056
01:02:19,640 --> 01:02:22,480
Speaker 1: for the bathrobe at some point, but the audience just

1057
01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:25,520
Speaker 1: saw my back. So in the press photos that have

1058
01:02:25,640 --> 01:02:28,720
Speaker 1: the slip that wasn't actually on that didn't end up

1059
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:32,760
Speaker 1: being on stage. No interesting from what I've seen. The

1060
01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: show ran for a couple of weeks, Um after Boston previews.

1061
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:40,720
Speaker 1: What was that switch from Boston to New York like

1062
01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:45,040
Speaker 1: that was the onslaught of publicity, So that was that

1063
01:02:45,120 --> 01:02:50,480
Speaker 1: was very difficult, um and um, you know, and I

1064
01:02:50,520 --> 01:02:52,560
Speaker 1: had to be very careful. I was a young girl.

1065
01:02:52,560 --> 01:02:54,320
Speaker 1: I didn't have a lot of money and stuff, and

1066
01:02:54,400 --> 01:02:58,400
Speaker 1: I was being followed after the show and stuff, and

1067
01:02:58,440 --> 01:03:00,280
Speaker 1: I had to have people meet me I were Remember,

1068
01:03:00,400 --> 01:03:03,080
Speaker 1: it was really not so pleasant that aspect once I

1069
01:03:03,160 --> 01:03:05,040
Speaker 1: was before I got on the stage and after I

1070
01:03:05,080 --> 01:03:06,920
Speaker 1: got off the stage. It really wasn't a heck of

1071
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:08,640
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. I remember having to go to

1072
01:03:08,680 --> 01:03:13,520
Speaker 1: the police department with some guy who was like following me,

1073
01:03:13,680 --> 01:03:16,240
Speaker 1: and some guy was leaving had followed me and left

1074
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 1: things at my apartment building and oh yeah I moved,

1075
01:03:19,520 --> 01:03:22,120
Speaker 1: and oh yes, it was all sorts of crazy stuff.

1076
01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:25,840
Speaker 1: I feel like any time I went to a party,

1077
01:03:25,880 --> 01:03:28,520
Speaker 1: people were really looking at me, so I stopped going

1078
01:03:28,560 --> 01:03:31,320
Speaker 1: to parties. I really became more of a reck louse

1079
01:03:31,320 --> 01:03:34,320
Speaker 1: than you would imagine because I felt like I couldn't

1080
01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:38,080
Speaker 1: live up to what people expected. That was my own insanity,

1081
01:03:38,240 --> 01:03:41,600
Speaker 1: I guess um. But I felt like they would expect

1082
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:44,720
Speaker 1: me to be prettier, expect me to be you know, sexy,

1083
01:03:44,800 --> 01:03:46,720
Speaker 1: or forget that I was an actress, and I was

1084
01:03:46,800 --> 01:03:50,440
Speaker 1: just very uncomfortable for a while in my own skin.

1085
01:03:51,600 --> 01:03:54,160
Speaker 1: It's worth mentioning Blanche Baker was said to have been

1086
01:03:54,400 --> 01:03:57,680
Speaker 1: amazing in this play, and that's saying a lot, because

1087
01:03:57,800 --> 01:04:00,440
Speaker 1: Lalita is not given much in the way of abstance

1088
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:03,560
Speaker 1: to do by Albie, The New York Times said, quote,

1089
01:04:03,720 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 1: the critics were almost unanimous on one point. Blanche Baker

1090
01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:10,320
Speaker 1: wasn't on Genue, whose time had come unquote before the

1091
01:04:10,360 --> 01:04:13,760
Speaker 1: show was abruptly shut down. And it's interesting because when

1092
01:04:13,800 --> 01:04:16,880
Speaker 1: I read the details of the protesters to this production

1093
01:04:17,000 --> 01:04:19,560
Speaker 1: and where they were coming from, they were women who

1094
01:04:19,600 --> 01:04:22,080
Speaker 1: felt that the play was attempting to make light of

1095
01:04:22,160 --> 01:04:25,160
Speaker 1: child sex abuse. And I'm inclined to agree with that,

1096
01:04:25,320 --> 01:04:28,040
Speaker 1: but I don't see how making a young female star

1097
01:04:28,200 --> 01:04:32,880
Speaker 1: feel unsafe helps to prove that point. Also, hilariously, the

1098
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:39,120
Speaker 1: protest group was called Women Against Pornography or whop. It

1099
01:04:39,160 --> 01:04:42,680
Speaker 1: just feels good to laugh. So Lolita does end up

1100
01:04:42,720 --> 01:04:45,640
Speaker 1: nearly forcing Blanche Baker out of the business out of

1101
01:04:45,720 --> 01:04:49,880
Speaker 1: sheer anxiety and frustration with the press. Where she benefits,

1102
01:04:49,960 --> 01:04:53,160
Speaker 1: of course, is by growing up witnessing her mother going

1103
01:04:53,160 --> 01:04:57,560
Speaker 1: through very similar experiences. So Blanche bounces back. Yeah, I

1104
01:04:57,600 --> 01:05:00,919
Speaker 1: think I was very lucky because I did theater. I

1105
01:05:01,000 --> 01:05:06,360
Speaker 1: did Poor Little Lands and Paul Redney play in hand. Um,

1106
01:05:06,400 --> 01:05:08,960
Speaker 1: you know, I did Sixteen Candles, which became sort of

1107
01:05:09,000 --> 01:05:14,080
Speaker 1: a cult classic, And here we are all these years later,

1108
01:05:14,720 --> 01:05:17,120
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm full time faculty at the New

1109
01:05:17,200 --> 01:05:20,840
Speaker 1: York Film Academy, and teaching brings me great happiness. So

1110
01:05:21,240 --> 01:05:24,680
Speaker 1: in the end, I feel like I had much more

1111
01:05:25,080 --> 01:05:29,640
Speaker 1: positive to take from it and was able to overcome, uh,

1112
01:05:29,680 --> 01:05:33,840
Speaker 1: that tsunami of press and fighting and all sorts of

1113
01:05:33,880 --> 01:05:39,160
Speaker 1: silly things that shouldn't really detract from the art. So

1114
01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:42,520
Speaker 1: that's Blanche Baker, and she's our Lolita of the nineteen eighties,

1115
01:05:43,240 --> 01:05:46,480
Speaker 1: which brings us to the fourth Lolita the last prominent

1116
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:50,360
Speaker 1: one in pop culture canon Dominique Swain, who played Lolita

1117
01:05:50,600 --> 01:05:55,200
Speaker 1: in the Adrian Line movie adaptation. I've been trying for

1118
01:05:55,320 --> 01:05:57,880
Speaker 1: months to get ahold of Dominique to speak on this show,

1119
01:05:58,000 --> 01:06:00,080
Speaker 1: and it was not to be. But I'm how be

1120
01:06:00,120 --> 01:06:02,920
Speaker 1: the report that she's still working in movies today. She

1121
01:06:03,080 --> 01:06:05,880
Speaker 1: is the last of the mainstream Lowlida's in name put

1122
01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:08,360
Speaker 1: out into major pop culture, and there's a lot to

1123
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:11,640
Speaker 1: be learned from her life and career trajectory so far.

1124
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:15,400
Speaker 1: Dominique Swain was born in nineteen eighty in Malibu on

1125
01:06:15,440 --> 01:06:17,600
Speaker 1: the side of a freeway and began to work in

1126
01:06:17,640 --> 01:06:21,040
Speaker 1: the industry very young, though she maintained a fair amount

1127
01:06:21,040 --> 01:06:24,520
Speaker 1: of normalcy in going to school and balancing auditions as

1128
01:06:24,560 --> 01:06:28,240
Speaker 1: more of an extracurricular activity, at least at first. Her

1129
01:06:28,280 --> 01:06:31,320
Speaker 1: younger sister, Chelsea Swain, would later play one of the

1130
01:06:31,360 --> 01:06:35,120
Speaker 1: Lisbon sisters in Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides. In n

1131
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:39,520
Speaker 1: so the family was no stranger to a gauzy lens

1132
01:06:39,640 --> 01:06:43,000
Speaker 1: of the late nineteen nineties being applied to an underage girl.

1133
01:06:43,320 --> 01:06:46,600
Speaker 1: Before Lolita, Dominique hadn't done much more than play the

1134
01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:49,840
Speaker 1: body double for McAuley Culkin's younger sister in The good

1135
01:06:49,920 --> 01:06:54,120
Speaker 1: Son In. According to interviews at the time, Dominique had

1136
01:06:54,160 --> 01:06:58,080
Speaker 1: stopped auditioning for commercials ad nauseum almost two years before

1137
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:01,440
Speaker 1: when she was offered the audition for Adrian Lines Lolita.

1138
01:07:02,040 --> 01:07:06,360
Speaker 1: She auditioned, got it over twenty hundred other young actors,

1139
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:10,680
Speaker 1: and became, as Line referred to her on set, My Lolita.

1140
01:07:10,760 --> 01:07:13,680
Speaker 1: It was her first role, and that's important. Now. I've

1141
01:07:13,720 --> 01:07:16,680
Speaker 1: rehashed a lot of Swain's experiences on set and in

1142
01:07:16,760 --> 01:07:19,640
Speaker 1: preparation for the role of Lolita in our episode on

1143
01:07:19,680 --> 01:07:23,680
Speaker 1: the movie, but by all accounts, she approached the role

1144
01:07:23,960 --> 01:07:28,280
Speaker 1: very confidently, often improvising inside of a scene. Swain seemed

1145
01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:32,040
Speaker 1: both full of energy and eager to please. I'll remind

1146
01:07:32,040 --> 01:07:35,920
Speaker 1: you of this moment inside of a chemistry test between

1147
01:07:35,920 --> 01:07:46,240
Speaker 1: her and Jeremy Irons. Now, a lot of the middleman

1148
01:07:46,400 --> 01:07:49,480
Speaker 1: like pop culture of the nine nineties are at play here.

1149
01:07:49,720 --> 01:07:52,880
Speaker 1: The production required that Swain and Iron's have a pillow

1150
01:07:52,920 --> 01:07:55,320
Speaker 1: between them in scenes where she sits on his lap,

1151
01:07:55,640 --> 01:07:59,120
Speaker 1: but there's photos from the set of Adrian Line regularly

1152
01:07:59,200 --> 01:08:03,080
Speaker 1: hugging and making physical contact with his lead star Dominique

1153
01:08:03,120 --> 01:08:06,600
Speaker 1: Swain could not thankfully appear nude in the movie, but

1154
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:10,000
Speaker 1: she could appear in a skin tight, sheer body suit

1155
01:08:10,080 --> 01:08:12,880
Speaker 1: from a distance as if she's nude. There was also

1156
01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:15,680
Speaker 1: a running controversy on set with the cast and crew

1157
01:08:15,840 --> 01:08:19,679
Speaker 1: on whether Dominique was being coddled too much. Other crew

1158
01:08:19,720 --> 01:08:23,479
Speaker 1: members seem visibly uncomfortable with the subject matter and make

1159
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:27,280
Speaker 1: excuses for it as they go. My friend experienced abuse

1160
01:08:27,360 --> 01:08:30,479
Speaker 1: as a child, and she's fine now. According to Elizabeth

1161
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:35,799
Speaker 1: Kay's piece Lolita Comes Again from in Esquire magazine, Dominique

1162
01:08:35,800 --> 01:08:39,160
Speaker 1: Swain was high spirited and loved the attention that came

1163
01:08:39,280 --> 01:08:42,560
Speaker 1: with starring in a movie at fifteen. She once allegedly

1164
01:08:42,600 --> 01:08:45,160
Speaker 1: held up production a whole day because she didn't want

1165
01:08:45,160 --> 01:08:47,880
Speaker 1: her last scene to come. But shooting wraps and her

1166
01:08:47,920 --> 01:08:52,639
Speaker 1: performance in this movie is undeniable. While Lolita struggled through

1167
01:08:52,760 --> 01:08:56,280
Speaker 1: edits and couldn't find a distributor, Swain returned to Malibu

1168
01:08:56,360 --> 01:08:59,519
Speaker 1: High School and gets a role playing John Travolta's daughter

1169
01:08:59,560 --> 01:09:03,160
Speaker 1: in Face Soft. You know that famous movie where John

1170
01:09:03,320 --> 01:09:06,960
Speaker 1: Travolta and Nicolas Cage switched faces. Here's the setup of

1171
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:09,479
Speaker 1: the scene. I'm about to show you they've just switched

1172
01:09:09,560 --> 01:09:14,120
Speaker 1: the faces. Travolta goes back home and immediately starts hitting

1173
01:09:14,160 --> 01:09:17,840
Speaker 1: on his teenage daughter played by Dominique Swain. So in

1174
01:09:17,840 --> 01:09:20,559
Speaker 1: this whole scene, she is in her underwear and the

1175
01:09:20,600 --> 01:09:23,639
Speaker 1: camera is panning up and down her body as John

1176
01:09:23,640 --> 01:09:27,800
Speaker 1: Travolta lears at her, I'll have to call you back.

1177
01:09:29,720 --> 01:09:33,960
Speaker 1: You're not respecting my boundaries. I'm coming in, Jane, Jamie.

1178
01:09:34,760 --> 01:09:37,880
Speaker 1: I don't think you heard me, Jamie. You've got something

1179
01:09:37,880 --> 01:09:42,400
Speaker 1: that I crave and it sounds bad, but trust me

1180
01:09:42,400 --> 01:09:45,200
Speaker 1: when I say it looks worse. So this part raises

1181
01:09:45,200 --> 01:09:48,640
Speaker 1: Swain's profile and she gets a big boost in publicity

1182
01:09:48,720 --> 01:09:51,439
Speaker 1: when Lolita is finally released in the US on the

1183
01:09:51,479 --> 01:09:56,240
Speaker 1: Showtime Network. During this press tour, she speaks eloquently on

1184
01:09:56,280 --> 01:09:59,120
Speaker 1: the topics that the book covers, even if those topics

1185
01:09:59,200 --> 01:10:02,120
Speaker 1: were not necessary really translated into the movie. For a

1186
01:10:02,160 --> 01:10:05,799
Speaker 1: few years after Lolita was buried in the US, Swaine

1187
01:10:05,800 --> 01:10:09,200
Speaker 1: appeared in a few sex driven rom coms. She plays

1188
01:10:09,240 --> 01:10:13,080
Speaker 1: the lead in Girl, about a teenager who decides she

1189
01:10:13,120 --> 01:10:16,479
Speaker 1: wants to be sexy, alongside Porsche de Rossi and Selma Blair,

1190
01:10:16,680 --> 01:10:20,799
Speaker 1: complete with the most thing ever a kissing between Swayne

1191
01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:23,799
Speaker 1: and Tara Reid, But within just two years of Lolita,

1192
01:10:24,080 --> 01:10:26,280
Speaker 1: she was rarely seen in a movie that didn't go

1193
01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:29,400
Speaker 1: straight to DVD, and in nearly all these movies, she

1194
01:10:29,479 --> 01:10:33,360
Speaker 1: plays a character whose storyline boils down to this. Either

1195
01:10:33,560 --> 01:10:37,200
Speaker 1: she is extremely sexualized from the first frame, or she's

1196
01:10:37,240 --> 01:10:40,320
Speaker 1: a character hell bent on losing her virginity, or her

1197
01:10:40,439 --> 01:10:44,520
Speaker 1: having sex in a movie triggers a tragic event or consequence.

1198
01:10:45,000 --> 01:10:48,160
Speaker 1: By the mid two thousand's, she was strictly in indie movies,

1199
01:10:48,280 --> 01:10:51,960
Speaker 1: then switched over to indie horror, where, like many before her,

1200
01:10:52,080 --> 01:10:54,760
Speaker 1: she gets a reputation as a scream queen that she

1201
01:10:54,880 --> 01:10:57,600
Speaker 1: holds onto to this day. She killed it in a

1202
01:10:57,680 --> 01:10:59,960
Speaker 1: small role in the movie Alpha Dog from two thous

1203
01:11:00,040 --> 01:11:02,479
Speaker 1: and six. But the last decade of Swain's career has

1204
01:11:02,520 --> 01:11:06,200
Speaker 1: brought mostly B movie titles. Titles like Boon, the Bounty Hunter,

1205
01:11:06,520 --> 01:11:09,599
Speaker 1: not The Overlord, Eminence Hill, not These at the Center

1206
01:11:09,640 --> 01:11:12,400
Speaker 1: of the Earth Camp be genre stuff that her performances

1207
01:11:12,439 --> 01:11:15,599
Speaker 1: are really good, and not the prestigious career that Lolita

1208
01:11:15,720 --> 01:11:18,639
Speaker 1: was supposed to have promised her an echo of all

1209
01:11:18,680 --> 01:11:21,600
Speaker 1: the Lolitas that came before her, there's more to it

1210
01:11:21,680 --> 01:11:25,320
Speaker 1: than her filmography dropping off in prestige projects pretty sharply.

1211
01:11:25,880 --> 01:11:27,320
Speaker 1: It has a lot to do with how she was

1212
01:11:27,360 --> 01:11:30,160
Speaker 1: received in the media and how the media framed her

1213
01:11:30,280 --> 01:11:33,400
Speaker 1: as a sexy party girl, as a little bit weird

1214
01:11:33,640 --> 01:11:37,679
Speaker 1: and encouraging her to appear naked. Swain has always been

1215
01:11:38,040 --> 01:11:41,080
Speaker 1: very much herself. She brought her pet Ferrett to the

1216
01:11:41,160 --> 01:11:45,559
Speaker 1: American premier of Lolita. She was known on the party

1217
01:11:45,560 --> 01:11:48,640
Speaker 1: scene in the early two thousand's, something she expanded on

1218
01:11:48,760 --> 01:11:51,240
Speaker 1: in a brief interview from two thousand one that calls

1219
01:11:51,240 --> 01:11:55,120
Speaker 1: her a reformed Hollywood party girl. I used to be

1220
01:11:55,200 --> 01:11:58,120
Speaker 1: crazy and just drink too much. The press kind of

1221
01:11:58,200 --> 01:12:02,080
Speaker 1: leaned into this sexualized partying image, and that's something that

1222
01:12:02,160 --> 01:12:04,679
Speaker 1: it's difficult to know how she felt about without actually

1223
01:12:04,760 --> 01:12:07,479
Speaker 1: talking to her. Swain is on social media and we'll

1224
01:12:07,479 --> 01:12:09,799
Speaker 1: do press junkets when a movie she's in is released,

1225
01:12:09,960 --> 01:12:12,559
Speaker 1: but she hasn't given an in depth interview about her

1226
01:12:12,600 --> 01:12:15,680
Speaker 1: life in years and years. I want to share some

1227
01:12:15,680 --> 01:12:18,120
Speaker 1: press quotes about Swain from when she was at the

1228
01:12:18,160 --> 01:12:21,040
Speaker 1: height of her teenage fame. Here in a piece where

1229
01:12:21,080 --> 01:12:24,479
Speaker 1: Dolores Hayes is described as the twelve year old nymphette

1230
01:12:24,520 --> 01:12:28,760
Speaker 1: who exchanges hand jobs for candy John Travolta saying to her,

1231
01:12:28,920 --> 01:12:32,320
Speaker 1: Jeremy Irons fake sex with her. Dominique Swain is America's

1232
01:12:32,400 --> 01:12:37,240
Speaker 1: least ordinary teenager. The marketing for Lolita, as well as

1233
01:12:37,280 --> 01:12:41,320
Speaker 1: how often she's presented sexually in the movie, certainly did

1234
01:12:41,400 --> 01:12:44,559
Speaker 1: a lot to shape Swain's image, just as Sue Lyon

1235
01:12:44,680 --> 01:12:48,320
Speaker 1: appearing in the heart shaped sunglasses shaped hers, just as

1236
01:12:48,360 --> 01:12:51,479
Speaker 1: sucking her thumb in a crib shaped Carol Baker's career,

1237
01:12:51,680 --> 01:12:55,280
Speaker 1: Swain was introduced to us as a seductress, not a

1238
01:12:55,280 --> 01:12:58,200
Speaker 1: squeaky clean kid the way that many fifteen year olds

1239
01:12:58,200 --> 01:13:01,360
Speaker 1: have been. She appeared on a number of magazine covers

1240
01:13:01,400 --> 01:13:05,280
Speaker 1: posing suggestively as Lolita when the movie was first released.

1241
01:13:05,560 --> 01:13:09,719
Speaker 1: She's licking her finger on the cover of Esquire. She's

1242
01:13:09,760 --> 01:13:12,759
Speaker 1: looking into the camera while Jeremy Irons kisses her hand

1243
01:13:12,880 --> 01:13:15,360
Speaker 1: on the cover of Viva. A little later in her career,

1244
01:13:15,400 --> 01:13:18,560
Speaker 1: she does a few bikini covers for for Him magazine.

1245
01:13:18,560 --> 01:13:22,400
Speaker 1: When she's twenty, the headline easy Tiger, Dominique Swain is

1246
01:13:22,439 --> 01:13:25,120
Speaker 1: on the Loose. She then became the youngest person ever

1247
01:13:25,160 --> 01:13:27,439
Speaker 1: to pose naked for Peter in two thousand one, at

1248
01:13:27,479 --> 01:13:29,800
Speaker 1: the age of twenty one, looking over her shoulder in

1249
01:13:29,800 --> 01:13:32,760
Speaker 1: a classroom scene, She's written I'd rather go naked than

1250
01:13:32,840 --> 01:13:36,920
Speaker 1: where for, over and over on the blackboard Bart Simpson style. Again,

1251
01:13:36,960 --> 01:13:39,680
Speaker 1: I'm not shaming her for doing this at all. What

1252
01:13:39,720 --> 01:13:42,559
Speaker 1: I'm trying to comment on is how the media was

1253
01:13:42,760 --> 01:13:46,080
Speaker 1: framing this young actor. Here's an interview she did at

1254
01:13:46,080 --> 01:13:49,000
Speaker 1: the time of the petis bread. Are people reacting to

1255
01:13:49,040 --> 01:13:52,479
Speaker 1: the the poster um? Not really in the way that

1256
01:13:52,560 --> 01:13:55,880
Speaker 1: one might hope. Some of my some of my my

1257
01:13:56,000 --> 01:13:59,280
Speaker 1: and my boyfriend's mutual friends called and um and they

1258
01:13:59,320 --> 01:14:01,400
Speaker 1: were like, oh, yeah, your girlfriend's hot. How did you

1259
01:14:01,439 --> 01:14:10,360
Speaker 1: get her exactly? Okay, Um, you know what. It's been

1260
01:14:10,439 --> 01:14:16,679
Speaker 1: cute talking, but let's go check out the poster. Okay.

1261
01:14:16,880 --> 01:14:19,599
Speaker 1: This is an interview that's available on YouTube, and the

1262
01:14:19,640 --> 01:14:23,280
Speaker 1: comments on these interviews, regardless of whether the interview is

1263
01:14:23,280 --> 01:14:28,800
Speaker 1: from or two eighteen, always say lolita or some weird

1264
01:14:28,800 --> 01:14:33,240
Speaker 1: shit like this. Yuck. The audience is so creepy, like

1265
01:14:33,320 --> 01:14:36,120
Speaker 1: yelling and howling at her. She is kind of flirtatious, though.

1266
01:14:36,680 --> 01:14:39,960
Speaker 1: Here's another interview from two thousand two where Dominique jumps

1267
01:14:39,960 --> 01:14:41,960
Speaker 1: into the host's arms at the beginning of the interview,

1268
01:14:42,200 --> 01:14:45,400
Speaker 1: and describes her own personality in the context of auditioning

1269
01:14:45,439 --> 01:14:49,320
Speaker 1: for Lolita they were casting in l A, Okay, I

1270
01:14:49,360 --> 01:14:51,400
Speaker 1: was I was like trying out for Barbie Doll commercials

1271
01:14:51,400 --> 01:14:54,960
Speaker 1: when I was twelve years old and it wasn't working out. Um,

1272
01:14:55,000 --> 01:14:57,640
Speaker 1: I have a little bit too much enthusiasm. Even her

1273
01:14:57,680 --> 01:15:01,680
Speaker 1: commercial launching yourself with at the auditions, you know it

1274
01:15:01,720 --> 01:15:04,720
Speaker 1: doesn't go over very well. Um, they don't think that

1275
01:15:04,760 --> 01:15:08,280
Speaker 1: they have to catch you. And then here's how she

1276
01:15:08,320 --> 01:15:10,679
Speaker 1: describes the parts that she was getting at this time,

1277
01:15:11,040 --> 01:15:15,760
Speaker 1: this being a reference to two thousand two's New Best Friend. Um, yeah,

1278
01:15:15,800 --> 01:15:19,519
Speaker 1: I play this like sex crazed seventeen year old maniac.

1279
01:15:19,920 --> 01:15:27,760
Speaker 1: So here's a comment from below this video. She is flirty,

1280
01:15:28,200 --> 01:15:32,080
Speaker 1: just like Lolita. I don't know how Dominique Swain feels

1281
01:15:32,080 --> 01:15:34,479
Speaker 1: about this portion of her life now, but she was

1282
01:15:34,600 --> 01:15:37,479
Speaker 1: very much a contemporary of the teen dream squad of

1283
01:15:37,479 --> 01:15:41,480
Speaker 1: the nineties that I would loop in. Actors like Alicia Silverstone,

1284
01:15:41,560 --> 01:15:45,080
Speaker 1: Drew Barrymore, gentlem Alone, Rose McGowan, terror Read, Selma Blair,

1285
01:15:45,160 --> 01:15:49,000
Speaker 1: Christina Ricchie, Natalie Portman, and on and on and Dominique

1286
01:15:49,040 --> 01:15:52,639
Speaker 1: Swain deserved a career of that caliber. But I'm arguing

1287
01:15:52,680 --> 01:15:56,519
Speaker 1: here that being lolitified as an introduction to public life

1288
01:15:56,720 --> 01:15:59,720
Speaker 1: is a massive thing to get out from underneath. So

1289
01:16:00,000 --> 01:16:03,000
Speaker 1: and continues on to be a genre film actress and

1290
01:16:03,080 --> 01:16:06,679
Speaker 1: continues to work today. Her co star Jeremy Irons hasn't

1291
01:16:06,680 --> 01:16:09,559
Speaker 1: wanted for work since. Granted, he was an established actor

1292
01:16:09,560 --> 01:16:11,719
Speaker 1: when he took the role of Humbert Humbert, but consider

1293
01:16:11,800 --> 01:16:15,559
Speaker 1: that he has had multiple instances of saying very offensive

1294
01:16:15,560 --> 01:16:18,479
Speaker 1: things about women and the queer community that we're barely

1295
01:16:18,560 --> 01:16:21,360
Speaker 1: reported on, and he's continued to work as the ultimate

1296
01:16:21,439 --> 01:16:25,720
Speaker 1: villain uninterrupted, most recently being nominated for his work in Watchman.

1297
01:16:26,160 --> 01:16:29,479
Speaker 1: Nor did James Mason struggle to find work after Lolita

1298
01:16:29,560 --> 01:16:31,960
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two. He was in control of his

1299
01:16:32,040 --> 01:16:35,560
Speaker 1: career to a much greater extent. He was already established.

1300
01:16:35,720 --> 01:16:39,040
Speaker 1: He was not being aggressively pursued by the person who

1301
01:16:39,080 --> 01:16:41,920
Speaker 1: decided what he was doing with his life, as happened

1302
01:16:41,960 --> 01:16:45,719
Speaker 1: with Lyon. Donald Sutherland didn't suffer the bout of stalking

1303
01:16:45,800 --> 01:16:48,880
Speaker 1: and pressed backlash from having been in Lolita that Blanche

1304
01:16:48,880 --> 01:16:51,840
Speaker 1: Baker did. John Neville, who played Humbert in Lolita, my

1305
01:16:51,920 --> 01:16:55,080
Speaker 1: love was never faced with the choice of exposing himself

1306
01:16:55,080 --> 01:16:58,640
Speaker 1: on stage or losing his job. There is always an

1307
01:16:58,720 --> 01:17:02,360
Speaker 1: unfair burden put on the Lolita in the equation, which

1308
01:17:02,400 --> 01:17:04,839
Speaker 1: is really just an extension of how our culture treats

1309
01:17:04,880 --> 01:17:08,599
Speaker 1: the character of Dolores Hayes. Dominique Swain, like Sue Lyon,

1310
01:17:09,000 --> 01:17:13,000
Speaker 1: did have a wild youth and generated the occasional exploitative

1311
01:17:13,040 --> 01:17:15,960
Speaker 1: TMZ headline, but neither of them were given the amount

1312
01:17:15,960 --> 01:17:18,479
Speaker 1: of grace that their male co stars would have been.

1313
01:17:18,920 --> 01:17:21,360
Speaker 1: Anytime Swain has come up in the news for anything

1314
01:17:21,520 --> 01:17:25,080
Speaker 1: good or bad, the lead is Lolita actress Dominique Swain,

1315
01:17:25,680 --> 01:17:28,120
Speaker 1: attaching a stigma to her name before you even know

1316
01:17:28,200 --> 01:17:31,800
Speaker 1: what the story is about. Yes, Lolita is Swain's most

1317
01:17:31,840 --> 01:17:34,360
Speaker 1: famous role, but as we know from the Long Island

1318
01:17:34,400 --> 01:17:38,400
Speaker 1: Lolita case, the term Lolita is generally applied to young

1319
01:17:38,439 --> 01:17:41,640
Speaker 1: women who we are supposed to be thinking of as devious.

1320
01:17:42,160 --> 01:17:45,679
Speaker 1: Going off of her performance in Lolita alone, Dominique Swain

1321
01:17:45,920 --> 01:17:49,840
Speaker 1: is a massively talented person and the last Lolita did

1322
01:17:49,880 --> 01:17:53,040
Speaker 1: not get a fair shot. The good news is that

1323
01:17:53,080 --> 01:17:55,760
Speaker 1: she is well and happy, and it's not too late

1324
01:17:55,800 --> 01:17:58,080
Speaker 1: to give her the types of parts she's proven she

1325
01:17:58,120 --> 01:18:01,720
Speaker 1: could handle since she was fourteen. One last quick thing here,

1326
01:18:02,160 --> 01:18:05,680
Speaker 1: Dominique went on a show called Celebrity Ghost Stories in

1327
01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:08,840
Speaker 1: the two thousand's and she did give this iconic quote,

1328
01:18:09,760 --> 01:18:12,799
Speaker 1: It's one thing to have a ghost, it's entirely another

1329
01:18:12,920 --> 01:18:17,160
Speaker 1: thing to have a ghost who hates women and maybe

1330
01:18:17,240 --> 01:18:22,200
Speaker 1: trying to kill you. And um, I'm never gonna stop

1331
01:18:22,280 --> 01:18:25,960
Speaker 1: quoting that. That is incredible. And then after Dominique swain,

1332
01:18:26,439 --> 01:18:30,840
Speaker 1: no more Lolita's. Except that's not exactly true, is it.

1333
01:18:31,040 --> 01:18:33,679
Speaker 1: We've talked about Millie Bobby Brown having the term applied

1334
01:18:33,720 --> 01:18:35,920
Speaker 1: to her just three years ago. At the beginning of

1335
01:18:35,920 --> 01:18:39,680
Speaker 1: this episode, Natalie Portman had this label of playing lolita's,

1336
01:18:40,000 --> 01:18:43,720
Speaker 1: the subtext being the underage fixation of adult male desires

1337
01:18:43,840 --> 01:18:47,080
Speaker 1: in her early roles in the nineties. Alio was treated

1338
01:18:47,120 --> 01:18:49,200
Speaker 1: this way at the beginning of her fame with age

1339
01:18:49,200 --> 01:18:51,600
Speaker 1: Ain't Nothing but a number. Brooke Shields was treated like

1340
01:18:51,600 --> 01:18:53,880
Speaker 1: a lolita in the seventies when she was allowed to

1341
01:18:53,920 --> 01:18:57,719
Speaker 1: pose for Playboy Naked at ten years old. Britney Spears

1342
01:18:57,760 --> 01:19:00,280
Speaker 1: had the lolita label applied to her because of how

1343
01:19:00,280 --> 01:19:02,280
Speaker 1: she was styled at the height of her early fame.

1344
01:19:02,560 --> 01:19:05,599
Speaker 1: Both Dakota and l Fanning have started in Lolita themed

1345
01:19:05,640 --> 01:19:08,600
Speaker 1: perfume shoots while underage, and Dakota Fanning started in a

1346
01:19:08,640 --> 01:19:12,320
Speaker 1: movie where her character is brutally raped when she was twelve.

1347
01:19:12,680 --> 01:19:15,800
Speaker 1: Shirley Temple was styled as if she were stripping for

1348
01:19:15,960 --> 01:19:19,000
Speaker 1: adult male stars in movies when she was under ten

1349
01:19:19,080 --> 01:19:21,559
Speaker 1: years old. And let's be honest, the reason that I'm

1350
01:19:21,640 --> 01:19:24,920
Speaker 1: using these examples is because you know who these actors

1351
01:19:24,960 --> 01:19:28,080
Speaker 1: are and their careers, if not their lives, were able

1352
01:19:28,120 --> 01:19:31,360
Speaker 1: to overcome the stigma applied to them by this logic,

1353
01:19:31,640 --> 01:19:34,800
Speaker 1: they're the lucky ones, and that's not the norm. The

1354
01:19:34,840 --> 01:19:37,360
Speaker 1: Sioue lions of the world don't get the benefit of that.

1355
01:19:37,880 --> 01:19:41,240
Speaker 1: So just because the fury of a new Lolita adaptation

1356
01:19:41,600 --> 01:19:44,519
Speaker 1: hasn't reached the mainstream in any meaningful way in nearly

1357
01:19:44,520 --> 01:19:48,040
Speaker 1: twenty five years, doesn't mean that the story and the

1358
01:19:48,080 --> 01:19:51,639
Speaker 1: stigma and the cultural myth assigned to its title character,

1359
01:19:51,840 --> 01:19:56,160
Speaker 1: a character who never really existed, doesn't still exist. It's

1360
01:19:56,280 --> 01:19:58,799
Speaker 1: very much here in the way that we talk about abuse,

1361
01:19:59,000 --> 01:20:02,200
Speaker 1: in the way that we misabuse in communities where the

1362
01:20:02,240 --> 01:20:05,960
Speaker 1: story is well remembered, and in callous conversations where the

1363
01:20:06,080 --> 01:20:09,840
Speaker 1: term Lolita is deployed in place of child. I think

1364
01:20:09,880 --> 01:20:12,959
Speaker 1: deserved and is to blame for the abuse they suffered.

1365
01:20:13,439 --> 01:20:17,479
Speaker 1: So what do we do about that? Opinions vary the

1366
01:20:17,560 --> 01:20:20,919
Speaker 1: closer I've studied this work, and I've studied it very closely.

1367
01:20:21,240 --> 01:20:24,080
Speaker 1: I don't think the answer is to pretend that Lolita

1368
01:20:24,240 --> 01:20:27,479
Speaker 1: never happened and hope that the world follows suit, because

1369
01:20:27,479 --> 01:20:30,160
Speaker 1: I definitely won't, and I think it's almost a disservice

1370
01:20:30,320 --> 01:20:33,240
Speaker 1: to not attempt to face the monster that our culture

1371
01:20:33,360 --> 01:20:35,920
Speaker 1: has created, and that whether we realize it or not,

1372
01:20:36,240 --> 01:20:39,519
Speaker 1: we have probably been complicit in at some point. So

1373
01:20:39,600 --> 01:20:42,320
Speaker 1: many people have avoided knowing the truth of the text

1374
01:20:42,680 --> 01:20:45,880
Speaker 1: because of this very flawed cultural narrative that hasn't just

1375
01:20:45,960 --> 01:20:49,439
Speaker 1: misled us, it has harmed people, and avoiding that reality

1376
01:20:49,600 --> 01:20:52,439
Speaker 1: has done nothing to combat it. Who we have yet

1377
01:20:52,479 --> 01:20:55,040
Speaker 1: to see, and who it is necessary that we see,

1378
01:20:55,600 --> 01:20:59,719
Speaker 1: is Dolores Hayes. So no, there is no Lolita curse.

1379
01:21:00,040 --> 01:21:02,040
Speaker 1: The lives of the four Lolitas I described to you

1380
01:21:02,080 --> 01:21:06,000
Speaker 1: today are all very different. Their commonalities lie in being

1381
01:21:06,080 --> 01:21:09,760
Speaker 1: sexualized and overblown by the media and the public, and

1382
01:21:09,840 --> 01:21:12,599
Speaker 1: many of them dealing with abuse before and after taking

1383
01:21:12,640 --> 01:21:15,479
Speaker 1: the role. This is not something exclusive to the role

1384
01:21:15,560 --> 01:21:19,600
Speaker 1: of Lolita. It's the story of many, many young entertainers

1385
01:21:19,640 --> 01:21:23,600
Speaker 1: thrust into the spotlight as a sex object without any protection.

1386
01:21:24,160 --> 01:21:27,679
Speaker 1: Next week is the last episode of this show, and

1387
01:21:27,760 --> 01:21:29,280
Speaker 1: it's going to be a lot of things. It's going

1388
01:21:29,320 --> 01:21:32,280
Speaker 1: to be people who I've spoken to throughout this series

1389
01:21:32,400 --> 01:21:35,160
Speaker 1: speaking on their thoughts on the future of Lolita. It

1390
01:21:35,160 --> 01:21:38,600
Speaker 1: will be conversations with female and non binary filmmakers I

1391
01:21:38,640 --> 01:21:41,040
Speaker 1: really love on what they think is missing in pop

1392
01:21:41,080 --> 01:21:44,639
Speaker 1: media addressing child sex abuse. It's a look at movies

1393
01:21:44,640 --> 01:21:46,559
Speaker 1: that have been made about child sex abuse in the

1394
01:21:46,640 --> 01:21:49,400
Speaker 1: last fifteen years, and it's me figuring out what the

1395
01:21:49,400 --> 01:21:51,960
Speaker 1: funk to do with everything we've learned here. So if

1396
01:21:52,000 --> 01:21:54,200
Speaker 1: you've been with me this far, thank you so much,

1397
01:21:54,520 --> 01:21:57,880
Speaker 1: and let's see where all this lands next week on

1398
01:21:58,160 --> 01:22:02,439
Speaker 1: Lolita Podcast. It to Podcast is an I Heart Radio production.

1399
01:22:02,840 --> 01:22:06,400
Speaker 1: It is written and hosted by me Jamie Loftus, produced

1400
01:22:06,400 --> 01:22:10,800
Speaker 1: by Sophie Lichtman, beth Ann Macoluso, Miles Gray, and Jack O'Brien.

1401
01:22:11,040 --> 01:22:14,320
Speaker 1: It is edited by Isaac Taylor. Music is from Zoe

1402
01:22:14,439 --> 01:22:18,439
Speaker 1: Blade and our theme is from Brad Dickert. My guest

1403
01:22:18,520 --> 01:22:21,120
Speaker 1: voices this week are Julia Claire on A host nie A,

1404
01:22:21,560 --> 01:22:26,000
Speaker 1: Sophie Lichtman, Daniel Goodman, Miles Gray, and Isaac Taylor. See

1405
01:22:26,000 --> 01:22:30,360
Speaker 1: you next week.