Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Sue Lyon

 
Actor: Sue Lyon
  • Born: Jul 10, 1946 in Davenport, Iowa
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '60s-'70s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Thriller
  • Career Highlights: Lolita, The Flim-Flam Man, The Night of the Iguana
  • First Major Screen Credit: Lolita (1962)

Biography

"How could they make a movie out of Lolita?" screamed the print ads in 1962. By changing the 12-year-old object of Humbert Humbert's lust into a 15-year-old, that's how. Selected to portray Vladimir Nabokov's celebrated nymphet was Sue Lyon, who was 14 when she won the role. Unfortunately, Lyon was unable to live up to her Lolita publicity blitz in subsequent roles: any actress could have done as well as she did in films like Night of the Iguana (1965), The Flim Flam Man (1967), Tony Rome (1967) and Evel Knievel (1971). Beset with personal problems in the 1970s and 1980s, Sue Lyon's film appearances became increasingly infrequent; later she enjoyed another brief burst of press coverage when she married a prisoner who was serving a life sentence for murder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Search unanswered questions...
Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics
Wikipedia: Sue Lyon
Top
Sue Lyon
Born Suellyn Lyon
July 10, 1946 (1946-07-10) (age 63)
Davenport, Iowa
Years active 19601980
Spouse(s) Hampton Fancher
(1963–1965)
Roland Harrison
(1971–1972)
Cotton Adamson
(1973–1974)
Edward Weathers
(1983–1984)
Richard Rudman
(1985–2002)

Sue Lyon (born July 10, 1946 in Davenport, Iowa) is an American actress.

Contents

Film career

Lolita

Sue Lyon was 14 years old when she was cast in the role of Dolores "Lolita" Haze, the sexually charged adolescent and the object of an older man's obsessions in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 film, Lolita. She was chosen for the role partly because her curvy figure suggested an older adolescent. Based on the Vladimir Nabokov novel of the same name, Kubrick's Lolita, though a toned-down version of the book (Lolita is only 12 at the beginning of the novel and 17 at the end),[1] was nonetheless one of the most controversial films of its day. Lyon was 16 when the film premiered in September 1962. She became an instant celebrity and won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Female. Despite her inexperience, she was praised for holding her own in scenes with the three top-billed stars of the film, James Mason, Shelley Winters and Peter Sellers.

Later films

In 1963, Lyon was again cast as a seductive teen in John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964), competing for the affections of Richard Burton's defrocked preacher against the likes of Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner. Again, controversy surrounded her because of a provocative scene in the film in which Lyon is shown emerging from the water. In 1965, she played a mission worker in China in director John Ford's last feature film, 7 Women. Lyon played the female lead in the 1967 comedy The Flim-Flam Man and had a supporting role in 1967's Tony Rome which starred Frank Sinatra. She played the wife of daredevil Evel Knievel in the 1971 film Evel Knievel. [2]

By the 1970s, she was relegated to mainly secondary roles. She continued to work in film and television until 1980.

Filmography

References

  1. ^ Vladimir Nabokov, The Annotated Lolita, Vintage Books, 1991, pp. 45, 46. ISBN 978-0679727293.
  2. ^ Evel Knievel : Press Kit, Cast, Crew, Synopsis, Movie Posters

External links


 
 
Learn More
The End of the World (1977 Fantasy Film)
Crash (1976 Horror Film)
Evel Knievel (1971 Action Film)

River in lyons? Read answer...
Is Lyon in Paris? Read answer...
Who is Jordan Lyons? Read answer...

Help us answer these
Who is kersten lyon?
Who was Nathanal Lyon?
What is Lyon known for?

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

 

Copyrights:

Actor. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sue Lyon" Read more

 

Mentioned in