60th SEX, SCANDAL &SUCCESS
Peyton Place’s reputation was saucy from the start. Before the film starring Lana Turner began shooting in quiet Camden, Maine, mothers packed up their young daughters and sent them away for the summer. “It was such a scandalous story they didn’t want their children to overhear it,” Ardis Cameron, author of Unbuttoning America: A Biography of Peyton Place, tells Closer.
The 1957 film brought the taboos that were only whispered about in Eisenhower’s America — affairs, unwed mothers, incest, abortion, murder — out into the open. Both the original 1956 book by Grace Metalious and Peyton Place’s subsequent TV series (which helped launch the careers of Mia Farrow and Ryan O’Neal) helped set off a cultural avalanche that would change the nation forever. “The film was very controversial at the time,” Russ Tamblyn, 82, who played Norman, tells Closer. “Some church organizations banned it, saying we had gone way over the line.”
BEHIND THE CURTAIN
While its tales of scandal in a fictional New England town caused a sensation, the casts of both the film and TV series, which ran from 1964 to 1969, worked without drama. Russ, whose memoir Dancing on the Edge is due out next year, remembers frolicking on the beach with his big-screen co-stars. “We were a close-knit company,” says Russ, who struck up a romance with Diane Varsi, who played Allison. “We drove out to an island for a lobster bake — it was wonderful.”
Likewise, the TV cast kept the drama on camera — mostly. Mia Farrow, who played Allison, created a stir by cropping her hair during filming. “When Mia was with Frank Sinatra, she arrived to the set in his limo with her hair cut short and marched into the makeup trailer,” remembers Mariette Hartley, 77, who played Claire. “I don’t think she let them put a wig on her. She was determined.”
The film was the second highestgrossing film of 1958 and garnered nine Oscar nominations, including a supporting actor nod for Russ, who went on to star in West Side Story. The TV incarnation
STARS REVEAL HOW THE SMALL-TOWN SOAP GOT EVERYONE WORKED UP IN A LATHER
aired three times a week and attracted 64 million viewers at its height, paving the way for future prime-time soaps, such as Dallas and Dynasty .
By the time the series went off the air in 1969, America wasn’t as innocent as it once was. The Vietnam War was raging, the women’s liberation movement had begun and Peyton Place “had lost its relevance,” says Cameron.
That hasn’t stopped its many fans from remembering it fondly. “I’ve had people tell me how their mothers used to tape Peyton Place — just a sound tape,” recalls Mariette, who attends conventions to this day. “I’m grateful to be invited. Peyton Place put me on the map.” — Louise A. Barile,
with reporting by Amanda Champagne-Meadows and Jaclyn Roth
“Lana Turner kept
to herself. She was the
big star.” — Russ Tamblyn, about Lana, here with co-star Lee Phillips