IF IT'S NOT TUESDAY, IT MUST BE YVETTE, CAROL OR DIANE
BY TOM LISANTI
From 1959 to 1964 blonde nymphets, in the tradition of the
thumb-sucking Carroll Baker in Baby Doll,
ruled the silver screen. Two of the most
popular with teenage audiences were Sandra Dee and Connie Stevens but the four
with the most potential to become important actresses and who always seemed on
the verge of major stardom were Yvette Mimieux, Carol Lynley, Tuesday Weld, and
Diane McBain. These scintillating starlets molded in the image of the flaxen-haired,
pony-tailed Barbie Doll released during this time were interchangeable as a
litter of kittens. Glancing at movie
magazines of the time, you barely could tell one from the other. But these baby doll blondes had to grow up
and when they did surprisingly none of them became super stars as poor choices,
typecasting, and just sheer bad luck hurt their careers.
Once described as a “princess come to life†Yvette Mimieux excelled
playing the fragile beauty who seemed to be always on the verge of a breakdown
(a vacationing coed who goes all the way in Where
the Boys Are, 1960; a mentally disturbed beauty in A Light in the Piazza, 1962; a rich girl in love with an Hawaiian
beach boy in Diamond Head, 1963; and
the wife of a struggling law student in Joy
in the Morning, 1965) or fantasy figure come to life (one of the Enui in The Time Machine, 1960; a princess in The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm,
1962). By the late Sixties/early Seventies she graduated to playing “the girlâ€
in a number of popular adventure movies including The Caper of the Golden Bulls (1967), Dark of the Sun (1968), Skyjacked
(1972), The Neptune Factor (1973)
while working steadily on TV. Perhaps
tired of being typecast, she wrote and starred as The Hit Lady for TV and then played a rape victim who seeks revenge
in the violent and popular drive-in hit, Jackson
County Jail (1975), which sustained her leading lady status into the
Eighties.
Carol Lynley, who was once described as having “beauty that
is awe inspiring,†began playing the good girl (a pregnant unwed teen in Blue Denim, 1959; aspiring author Allison
MacKenzie in Return to Peyton Place,
1961) before going the sex kitten route (a coed living platonically with her
boyfriend in Under the Yum Yum Tree,
1963; one of three girls looking for romance in The Pleasure Seekers, 1964).
She progressed to more adult roles as a harried young mother searching
for her misplaced daughter who may or may not exist in the cult classic Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) and a young
woman who inherits an old mill complete with a hideous thing in the attic in The Shuttered Room (1967). Her excellent performances typed her as the
damsel-in-distress though she essayed the role of a psychopathic heiress in Once You Kiss a Stranger (1969). Lynley unwisely
turned down Five Easy Pieces in 1970
(“They were only paying scaleâ€) and despite a banner 1972—she began it playing
reporter Darren McGavin’s girlfriend in the highest rated TV-movie up to that
point in The Night Stalker and ended
the year as the terrified pop singer in the box office champ, The Poseidon Adventure—the remainder of
the decade found her unjustly mired in low-budget independent films, TV-movies,
and stranded on Fantasy Island.
Tuesday Weld had more of an edge to her than Mimieux and
Lynley, and in keeping with her real life wild child persona see-sawed back and
forth between the mischievous hormonal teenager (Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys, 1959; Bachelor Flat, 1962; Soldier
in the Rain, 1963; I’ll Take Sweden,
1965); the tramp (Wild in the Country,
1961); and the self-absorbed sex kitten (Lord
Love a Duck, 1966). Weld undoubtedly could have become a superstar but she
famously turned down Lolita (“I don’t
have to play Lolita—I am Lolita!â€) and backed out of Bonnie and Clyde due to pregnancy.
After playing a murderous psychopath to great effect in the little-seen Pretty Poison (1968), she turned down in
quick succession True Grit, Cactus Flower, and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice once again assuring that she
would never be known to the masses. In
the Seventies she kept working steadily in studio productions (Play It As It Lays won her kudos in
1972) and even received an Academy Award nomination for her supporting turn as
Diane Keaton’s sister in Looking for Mr.
Goodbar (1977) but never appeared in a box office smash though by the
Eighties she was still copping leads opposite major stars in big movies—Thief (1981) with James Caan; Author! Author! (1982) with Al Pacino;
and Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
with Robert De Niro.
While Yvette, Carol and Tuesday all essayed the good girl
roles, Diane McBain seem to be always cast as the sophisticate or spoiled rich
girl who never got her man (Parrish,
1961; Mary, Mary, 1963; A Distant Trumpet, 1964; Spinout, 1966.) As Southern tramp Claudelle Inglish (1961), she not only
lost her true love but wound up with a stomach pumped full of buckshot by an
irate father. Though McBain brought a
vulnerability to these characters and made the audience empathize with them, they
typed her almost forever as the bitch. As
she matured her roles got even badder—a dope dealing high school teacher in Maryjane and a tough-talking biker chick
in The Mini-Skirt Mob—and her films
cheaper. By the end of the decade,
McBain was still being outshined by her three contemporaries even playing
second fiddle to Mimieux in The Delta
Factor (1970). Never able to arise from
low-budget exploitation movies, the Seventies found her talent wasted in
Grade-Z productions (Wicked, Wicked,
1973; The Deathhead Virgin, 1974),
the occasional TV-movie, and lots of television guest roles.
-Tom Lisanti/www.sixtiescinema.com