Posted on 12/27/2019 6:21:25 PM PST by Borges
Lyon was a model with two acting credits to her name when she beat out a reported 800 other actors for the part of Dolores Haze. Sue Lyon, the titular "nymphet" in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, has died. The actor was 73.
Lyon died on Thursday in Los Angeles, according to The New York Times, which broke the news. A friend, Phil Syracopoulos, told the publication that she had been in "declining health" for a while, but a cause of death was not provided.
Born in 1946 in Davenport, Iowa, Lyon was a model with two acting credits to her name when she beat out a reported 800 other actors for the part of Dolores Haze in Kubrick's Lolita, a project that was controversial from the start. Seven years old at the time of its film adaptation's release, Lolita divided critics over its depiction of a pedophile's relationship with a 12-year-old girl. After its initial publication in 1955 in France, officials in the U.K. and France banned sales of the book, which was finally published in the U.S. in 1958. In the face of naysayers, Lolita nevertheless became a bestseller and cultural sensation.
Though Nabokov was originally hired to write Lolita's screenplay, the famously finicky Kubrick rewrote much of the script which, in its final edition, portrayed Dolores Haze as a 15-year-old instead of a 12-year-old to comply with Motion Picture Production Code mandates. The movie was filmed secretly in London due to its difficult subject matter and though Lyon was 14 at the time that the film was shot, Lolita was infamously marketed with a picture of Lyon lounging in a bikini, wearing red-shaped sunglasses and licking a lollipop.
Reception of the film was mixed at the time of its release, and critics were divided over how the film treated the book's pedophilia. However, Kubrick's Lolita currently has a 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, showing how critical consensus has grown more positive over time.
Lyon shot to fame after playing Haze and, two years later, appeared in John Huston's Night of the Iguana. She also starred in John Ford's 1966 film 7 Women, 1967's Tony Rome and 1970's Four Rode Out and Evel Knievel, among a few other titles. Most recently, Lyon appeared in 1980's Alligator as an "ABC Newswoman."
In her personal life, Lyon married five times, to actor and filmmaker Hampton Fancher (Blade Runner); photographer and football coach Roland Harrison; Cotton Adamson, who was a convicted murderer at the time of their marriage; Edward Weathers; and radio engineer Richard Rudman. Lyon has blamed her controversial union with Adamson, who she met via a mutual friend, for losing out on parts in the industry.
But by the time of her marriage to Rudman, Lyon had ended her acting career, something she said in an early interview that she would eventually like to do: "I'd like to teach school and I'd like to get married and have children," she told The Pittsburgh Press in 1967.
Lyon is survived by her daughter with Harrison, Nona.
Girls with adult looking faces at an early age often don’t grow up to be attractive as adults.
The opposite was Shirley Temple. As a little girl she looked like one, but grew up to be stunningly beautiful in her twenties. However, she had long since quit her acting career.
As had Sue Lyon, give her credit.
RIP.. loved her in “Night of the Iguana”
I had a friend who was set up to date her right after she filmed lolita. Took her to the school dance. His mom knew her mom. Trying to normalize her life.
Well, that’s two celebs down and one to go...
Imus, Lyon and....?
And look where we are now in society. We can’t take attraction of men to women out of the species for that’s what sustains us and is natural us but I will never understand pedophilia.
“Audiences could “accept” a letch going after a 16-year old Sue Lyon (who was clearly through puberty), but would’ve been reviled if Kubrick had made her a young-looking child of 12.”
Look at what happened to Jerry Lee Lewis’ career after it was exposed that he married his 13 year-old cousin.
What’s with this recent trend to refer to women as actors”
I’ve noticed that too.
Richard Burton signed to do Night of the Iguana in Puerto Vallarta with Ava Gardner and sue Lyons. Liz Taylor was anticipating trouble with her cockhound husband.
Burton had been pleased a house during the filming. Liz bought the house across the street and had a walkway built between to two second floor decks. Can still see the houses on a city tour there.
I saw her in THE FLIM-FLAM MAN. She was HOT! She was the same age as I am. Now I really feel OLD!
You thought Lolita was a comedy?
LEASED
Yup, though that was a double-whammy for “offensiveness.” Both 13 AND his first cousin’s daughter.
The Kubrick version was a comedy. The 1997 Adrian Lyne version, which I prefer, is a drama.
That “Lolita” has a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is pretty disgusting, considering it’s main feature is pedophilia. How does a parent allow a 14 year old to appear in a movie like that? No telling how that girl was abused by directors, producers, etc. I think of the movie producer scene in “The
Godfather”, and, yeah, that’s fiction, but we know darned well that a large number of child actors were abused. It’s sickening, and one reason that anyone who watches that kind of crap is committing great evil. Now let’s hear it from everyone who thinks she was a little hottie. She was a CHILD.
I’m Surprised
No one has named
The “Other” Actor.
Up until about one hundred years ago many women married when in their early teens. Waiting until after high school age to marry is a fairly recent development.
The novel is an American classic and not remotely pornographic. This film was made in 1961. There is really nothing untoward in it.
Agreed,
and I can’t remember
Peter Sellers Characters’
Name.
THE FLIM-FLAM MAN one of my favorite films. Kind of a modern take on the Herman Melville book “Confidence”.
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