1 hour ago, Khan said:

I still wish someone would reboot PP as a streaming series. It'd be the PERFECT vehicle, IMO.

A period piece, start with the novel. Include Selena's pregnancy and murder trial, her mother's...Work from there.

Not a daily soap, but something bingeable.

@Khan Love the idea of a PP revival. Using the book as the basis, faithful to the period but with a modern overlay being more explicit about some of the events that the movie had to censor.

Some fantasy casting?

I'm currently up to Rachel's exit and I have to say baby Matthew is possibly the homeliest infant ever seen on primetime TV.

31 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

@Khan

31 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

I'm currently up to Rachel's exit and I have to say baby Matthew is possibly the homeliest infant ever seen on primetime TV.

Must be one of those early uncredited roles Linda Hunt has talked about.

Young Actress Scores as Newcomer in Peyton Place By CHARLES WITBECK

HOLLYWOOD-'Everybody that knows me takes great pains to tell me they don't watch the show," says cute, freckled-faced l9-yearold Pat Morrow, the newcomer on "Peyton Place" who plays Rita Jacks, daughter of a gin mill operator and a high school dropout. "I just happened to be passing through the living room, and there you were on the screen. My mother watches soap opera, not me,' " is the comment Pat says she gets from her college classmates. Grownups and teenagers are reluctant to admit tuning in "Peyton Place," but somebody must be watching. The evening soaper has become so popular ABC has added another half-hour segment, totaling three. This summer, opposite reruns, spicy, provocative "Peyton Place"' (you can't have reruns on a continuing story) threatens to become the big "dog days" hit with eyepopping romantic plans for Rita, the young, bad girl.

"You see, I grew up in a bar," says Pat, explaining Rita. "And I've been traveling around with the wrong crowd. Then I beccme Harrington's (a rich boy) girl. It all began when my boy friend slipped drugs in Norman's drink. "Now that I'm involved in the higher life, I begin to learn how to dress and I return to school." Rita was introduced to "Peyton Place" low life last February, and her part in a cast of 21 has steadily grown larger. Five pages of dialogue in a script have blossomed into 19, and this summer, according to producer Paul Monash, the combination of Rita and Norman will blow the top off the series. "We are 20 episodes ahead right now," says Pat with an elfish grin, "All I can say is that lots of things are going on. And we're not so wordy either."

Still, you need a scorecard to follow the intramural entanglements about the cast of 21. Pat's father, Los Angeles attorney Robert Morrow, tried to follow the plot in an episode and gave up because it was too complicated. He merely pretends with other lawyers to know what is going on. Such normality at home, doesn't keep Pat from being stunned over her big summer showcase in the role of Rita. "It's the luckiest break a girl could have." she says. "Secondly, I have three acting coaches in three directors—Walter Doniger, Ted Post and John New land — who do take time because they work with us regularly and get to know us. I go to rushes (film of the previous day's shooting) and learn how to correct my mistakes. "Even in the beginning Iwas lucky," Pat continued. "I was so tense, and yet managed to get one emotion across. Oh, thank heavens for that. Now I can do many emotions, and the directors are pleased: And it pleases me to have them pleased."

From the sound of it, Pat Morrow could be a beginner in local acting world, but she isn't Her first job came at the age of 14 weeks when Pat played baby for John Hodiak and Lana Turner in "Marriage Is A Private Affair." Her next job in "Roar of the Crowd," came seven years later. Since then Miss Morrow has been In pictures like "Oklahoma," "The Bad Seed," "Ma and Pa Kettle," the Mickey Mouse Club TV series, TV's "My Three Sons," "Mr. Novak" and on "Dr. Kildare" to mention a few. "My productive years were from nine to ' 12," says Pat. "I had freckles, lots of teeth and "braids. All I've been required to say is Hi Ma,* 'Hi Pa,' or 'Hi Mr. Novak.' Nothing changed. "Now I'm acting. I'm not beautiful and I work with Barbara Parkins who is very sexy, gorgeous and moody, and Mia Farrow who is beautiful in many ways and has many dimensions. This means all the young girls and older women sympathize with me because I don't have a chance against those two." Competing against beauties is the way to slip ahead in the Hollywood jungle. Good looks can be a knock; they're so commonplace in casting offices. "My agent told me a six weeks part was opening up on the series, and to run out and apply," said Pat. "I slumped in my school clothes and looked around. All the girls were dressed to the hilt." Pat's freckles, her happy grin and energy won out over the lookers. A few weeks later she heard, "Hey baby, how'd you like to be on for 52 weeks?"

The Morrow problem now is how to finish college and work on "Peyton Place" at the same time. "I've been missing two days a week at San Fernando State College since February," she says. "I've got exams coming up and don't know how I'll get through them, but I will. "I can't drop college," Pat adds. "Rita may quit school on the show, but I have an image to uphold and must show the kids that it isn't the thing to do."

41 minutes ago, Stevel said:

Must be one of those early uncredited roles Linda Hunt has talked about.

☹️

Edited Monday at 06:14 AM3 days by Paul Raven

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

I'm currently up to Rachel's exit and I have to say baby Matthew is possibly the homeliest infant ever seen on primetime TV.

That dubious award goes to baby Christopher on Dallas. All babies are miracles and all that, but some less than others.

I have to stop forgetting to watch PEYTON PLACE

It's SO good, well-plotted, acted.... I watched dozens of episodes in a row... then forget to keep watching.

11 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

@Khan Love the idea of a PP revival. Using the book as the basis, faithful to the period but with a modern overlay being more explicit about some of the events that the movie had to censor.

You could go either way: a PP revival that's set in the '50's, or one that's set in the present-day, but using the same characters as in the book/movie/original series).

11 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Some fantasy casting?

Not really, although it probably wouldn't hurt to cast a "soap name" or two.

Parade Jan 2 1965

Mia Farrow. TV's New Soap Opera Queen.

Many years ago I worked on a film at MGM with a director named John Farrow. He was an intelligent, talented, unhappy, bedeviled, frequently frustrated, insecure and arrogant man who should have become an actor—only he disliked actors intensely. A handsome, blond Australian who'd come to Hollywood as a portrait painter, Farrow developed over the years into a great Casanova—he bowled over almost everything in 'sight—and a fair film director. After one unsuccessful Hollywood marriage, he met and fell in love with a warm, sweet, gentle, beautiful actress who'd been raised in County Wicklow, Ireland. Her name was Maureen O'Sullivan, and she had played opposite Johnny Weismuller in the Tarzan series. Farrow converted to Catholicism, married Maureen and between film assignments wrote many works on the great figures of the Catholic Church, which led to his becoming a Papal Knight.

In 10 years Maureen O'Sullivan Farrow gave birth to 7 children—4 girls and 3 boys, one of whom died in a plane crash. For the most part the Farrows lived an elegant film colony life complete with cook, governess, gardeners, swimming pool, private schools, all the accoutrements befitting a family with an income of $150,000 a year and up.

During the film I worked on with Farrow—it turned out to be a Western atrocity starring Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner—we discussed one afternoon Ava's seemingly perpetual unhappiness, her insecurity, her lack of personal identity, her indulgence in various escape mechanisms. Farrow thought these characteristic of most actresses. "Ill tell you one thing," he asserted. "No daughter of mine is ever going to become an actress." John Farrow died almost two years ago, on January 27th, 1963. " Since then, his oldest daughter, Mia, 19 (real name—Maria), has become night-time television's first queen of the soap opera and one of the fastest-rising young actresses in the Hollywood constellation. Under contract to 20th Century-Fox at $ 1,000 a week, Mia plays Allison Mac Kenzie in Peyton Place, a serial which airs over ABC-TV every Tuesday and Thursday at 9 :3 0 P.M. She is also under contract for feature films and has finished one, Guns at Batasi, in which she replaced Peter Sellers' wife, Britt Eklund.

It's as a TV actress, however, that Mia is winning her first national fame. Each Tuesday and Thursday night she is exposed to millions of video-viewers as the bright, pretty, sensitive 17-year-old who doesn't know the awful small-town family secret: that she's illegitimate. Based loosely—very loosely—on the characters in the original novel by the late Grace Metalious, Peyton Place on TV has been described variously as "a situation orgy," as "a show in which everyone loves everybody—frequently" and as "a program in which the characters are more than realistically obsessed with their sex lives."

WHY ITS A SUCCESS

Although it is little more than a trashy souped-up soap opera, Peyton Place has become one of the outstanding hits of the new TV season, and Mia Farrow a hit along with it, ranks so high in the ratings—it's among the first 20 programs in popularity—is that it's become a sanctuary for watchers who are tired of the endless comedy and adventure series which the networks have so monotonously programmed. Of the 95 prime-time TV shows aired by the 3 networks, more than 40 are comedy programs and most of the others ridiculous Western-type or adventure series. Under the circumstances, Peyton Place, bad as it is, is welcome. Mia Farrow, of course, does not consider her soap opera banal, pedestrian, phony, nonintellectual, substandard or catering to the lowest common denominator of mass audience appeal. "I'm delighted," she says, "to be connected with a success, and while the success may come as a surprise to some, it's not to me." "Sex is a basic preoccupation of our age," she; continues in her soft, carefully modulated English finishing school voice, "and I think it's handled tastefully on Peyton Place. As you probably know, I play the youngest character on the show, only 17, and the truth is that the script writers don't really know what to do with me. They're afraid to get me into trouble, so thus far I've played endless scenes with my mother [Dorothy Malone] in which I constantly accuse her of not preparing me for life. I act someone who's always upset, and that's perfectly marvelous. I guess a lot of teenagers must identify with me. "I do two shows a week, and I plan to stay with Peyton another three years at best. I hope the studio will put me into other films, because I don't want to spend my entire career in television."

DETERMINED TO ACT

Blonde and blue-eyed, ethereal and fragile-looking, generating an air of innocence at odds with her will of iron, Mia Farrow is a resolute, well-bred child of Hollywood heritage who is sincerely determined to become "a good, serious actress." "I know," she admits, "that my father didn't want me to become an actress, but for sure in the end he would have relented. Anyway, I've always wanted to become one, and Mother certainly has been there for me." Says Maureen O'Sullivan: "Mia's father really had two lives. His true love was writing, and I think he felt that the films he made were not on a par with his ability. So that the best share of his creativity went into the books he wrote.

So that he had two different lives: the life of the writer and the man who liked to live and travel well, and the theatrical life which he didn't really like. What he wanted for Mia was the good life, not the theatrical one. 'How many happy actresses do you know?' be used to ask-— to which I would reply, 'How many happy women do you know?" "Ever since she was a little girl Mia wanted to become an actress. After I went back to acting again—luckily I had a hit show in New York [Never Too Late]—Mia asked if she could study acting. I told her, 'If you want to go into this business just to be a star and for die glamour or the money, you'll have your heart broken. But if you want to go into it because you love acting and you'd be just as happy to be acting in a barn as in Hollywood, then do it. You must realize you'll have disappointments and ups and downs. But if acting is your true love, you have my good wishes and help if I can.'" - Instead of returning to finishing school in England—she'd previously attended a convent school there, too—Mia Farrow remained in New York with her mother and on her own landed a part in The Importance of Being Earnest. She made her New York stage debut on July 2nd, 1963, got excellent reviews working opposite such veteran actors as Melville Cooper and John Merivale. The show's management asked her to work in their next production, and while awaiting it Mia went into summer stock. "Somebody from Fox in New York," she says, "saw me. He came and asked if I could do an American accent. Yes,' I said, 'I can do one quite easily.' So he asked if I would be interested in a television series, and I said no. But he kept coming back, so I did a general screen test for Fox and then the producer of Peyton Place, Paul Monash, came to New York, and he convinced me, so I went out and did the pilot. And I signed a contract for TV and regular features. "I was rehearsing another play, which was scheduled to open in London, when one Thursday evening! got a call from the studio asking if I could be in London the following Monday to work in the Guns at Batasi. Later I learned that Britt Eklund had walked out of it to fly to her husband, Peter Sellers, who came down with a heart attack in Hollywood. "After Batasi I came back to Hollywood, and I've been working in Peyton Place ever since. I think we've finished 44 episodes to date." To be 19, to earn $1,000 a week, to drive around in a Jaguar, to have your own horse, Salvador, stabled in Malibu, to decorate your apartment in Beverly Hills, to date some of the most attractive men in town, from Frank Sinatra, 49, to John Leyton, 25, to do what you've always wanted to do—what more could any girl ask for?

"What I want," says Mia, "is to achieve a skill, to grow as a person, to learn from others. That's why I feel more comfortable with older men. They're interesting. They've lived. They've arrived. They've got experiences to share. "I don't have any boy friends or girl friends my own age. They scare me. I can see the struggle going on within them. They're trying to impress me, especially the boys. They tread too heavily. I'm a very affinitive person, if there is such a word. I try to find an affinity with everyone, but somehow I can't make it with people of my own age.

"I remember after I had been in school abroad I came back to Beverly Hills for my last year, and I was never more miserable in my entire life. They laughed at me for wearing socks. I was completely rejected. I just couldn't get with it. I didn't understand the dating system here, boys and girls going steady at such an early age. I just hated it, probably because I wasn't part of it. I was so anxious to go back to England. And of course, I did.

"Basically I'm an emotional person* I try not to be. I try to be intellectual, to think things out, but I'm terribly impulsive. The reason I'm so happy acting is that it's the only thing right now which makes me a full person, the only way I have of giving and receiving. I have no other place to give what I have to give and ' get what I have to get except on stage or in front of a camera." A few weeks ago when Hedda Hopper broke the news that Mia Farrow had been dating Frank Sinatra—it was no secret in Hollywood—Sinatra became most agitated. To calm him down studio executives immediately ordered a "kill" on all photos taken of Mia and Sinatra together. There had been many of these. While Sinatra was filming Von Ryan's Express on the lot, Mia used to wander onto his sound stage and study him adoringly while the photographers clicked away. When one of the publicity men at 20th Century-Fox heard of the "kill" order, he asked incredulously, "Are they nuts? Mia Farrow is under contract here. If we release those shots of the doll, it'll make her hotter than a firecracker." "She doesn't need it," he was told. "Peyton Place is making her hot enough."