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photo gallery The life of the actress
Sue Lyon, who at the age of 14, he gave life to Lolita in the film namesake, 1962 Stanley Kubrick, died last Thursday night at the age of 73 in Los Angeles (united States). Although the cause of his death has not been made public, the health of the actress had been deteriorating during the last few years, as has revealed his friend Phil Syracopoulos. Despite the fact that his role most remembered is that of Lolita in 1962, the interpreter was active from 1959, when he made his debut in the series The show of Loretta Young (where he discovered Kubrick), until the 1980’s, with Alligator: the beast beneath the asphalt.
In Spain the film will not be released until 1971, and only in cinemas in madrid and barcelona art and essay, but soon that image of an adolescent girl in bikini with sunglasses in the shape of hearts, at the edge of a swimming pool and sucking on a lollipop (the poster of the movie, Bert Stern image that did not appear in the footage), or by getting to paint the nails of the feet by a deranged Humbert Humbert -played by James Mason – it marked the unconscious of a generation of film buffs, who will remember how the child molester Humbert uttered with pauses your name: “Lo-Li-Ta”. His big role came after an exhaustive casting to which there were more than 800 actresses. The writer of the original novel, Vladimir Nabokov, it was clear that she was the only one who could interpret to the young man on the big screen. “The nymph, perfect”, was the nickname the author used to refer to her, although she also pointed out that you would have liked that embody the French Catherine Demongeot. Stanley Kubrick shied away from the clash with the censorship to have chosen an actress with more age (14, although on the screen it is claimed that Lolita was 15) that the nymphet of the book (12 years).
James Mason and Sue Lyon in ‘Lolita’ by the director Stanley Kubrick. In the video, the trailer of the film in original version. Photo: GETTY
For Suellyn Lyon was the beginning and the end, the virtue of finding a role that would launch to stardom and interpret it to perfection, and the conviction that no spectator would forget, for a lot of growth in front of and behind the cameras. Born in Davenport (Iowa), Lyon began to act girl. Last of five children, her father died when she was only 10 months. After moving the family to Los Angeles, Lyon began as a model for catalogues of chain stores J. C. Penney and to appear in a tv ad. Before Lolita I had only participated in productions for the small screen, as the series Daniel, the naughty or the above-mentioned show of Loretta Young.
After his first foray into cinema, with which he won the Golden Globe in 1963 for the category “actress”, worked the night of The iguana, in 1964, under the direction of John Huston. That same year he was married, in a brief marriage, with the screenwriter Hampton Fancher III. In the film there were things better with jobs in Seven women (1966), Ford; A fabulous rascal (1967), de Irvin Kershner, or Underworld gold (1967) with Frank Sinatra. Warren Beatty almost choose to coprotagonizar with him, Bonnie and Clyde, but it was decided by Faye Dunaway, while Lyon got married with the photographer’s african-american Roland Harrison in 1971. Of this marriage was born their daughter, Nona, in Los Angeles, before divorciasen in 1972. Some of their behaviors more erratic Lyon achacaba to be manic-depressive illness, which was treated with lithium.
A good example is his third marriage, which in 1973 joined with an inmate of a prison, of Denver, Gary Adamson, convicted of robbery and murder. Lyon earned a reduction in his sentence, he began to work as a waitress near the penitentiary, and was divorced in 1974, when Adamson returned to steal. Lyon was married twice more.
In terms of his artistic career, he failed to best papers or in the movies or on television. His career ended in 1980 with the Alligator: the beast beneath the asphalt, with Robert Forster, and made public his retirement in 1986. For a long time, Lyon reneged Lolita. When, in 1997, he premiered a new version of Adrian Lynne, the actress said to Reuters: “I’m horrified with the idea that they want to revive the film that caused my destruction as a person”.
Two movies for your stay in Spain
Lyon gave a radical turn to his life by getting married in 1971 with the photographer’s african-american Roland Harrison. Racism is rampant that american society forced the couple to take the decision of moving. And chose Spain. Hence, Lyon appear in A drop of blood to die loving (1973), of Eloy of the Church, a thriller with echoes of a clockwork orange (not just in the action, Lyon appears reading the book of Burgess, in what seems a nod involuntary Kubrick) with the son of Robert Mitchum, Chris, and Jean Sorel.
His second job Spanish Tarot (1973), José María Forqué, with Fernando Rey and Gloria Grahame, and argument of Rafael Azcona, a movie pretty loose with a touch of erotic, in which Lyon gives life to a girl who marries an older man blinded by money, while maintaining a relationship with his servant. In the end, the blonde just in the eye of the hurricane of a conspiracy of all the servants to obtain the inheritance.
