FAREWELL, LOLITA.....RIP SUE LYON

Sue Lyon (1946-2019)     Not much we can add here to the obituaries of Sue Lyon, forever known for playing the title role in Stanley Kubrick's version of "Lolita".......

                In casting her, Kubrick went as young as he dared to in 1962....(she was 14)......not that it mattered, since Kubrick's ice-cold, dispassionate, satiric take on 'Lolita' barely flirted with  any real censorship problems.........(not unless the sight of James Mason painting Lyon's toenails left you outraged and aghast.....)

               Her 'Lolita' fame landed her another high profile project, John Huston's adaptation of Tennessee Williams' "Night Of The Iguana".....where, as a slightly older lust object, she switched from James Mason's fussy Humbert Humbert to Richard Burton's disgraced ex-clergyman.

               From then on,  she indifferently wandered into starlet roles of the late 60's, then on to episodic TV.....and then,like so man young actresses of that era, dropped off the radar.......(she was okay in all this various stuff......and truly, that's about as much as BQ can remember about her.....)

                But her signature role forever gives her a place in cinema history.....Kubrick no doubt extracted the performance he wanted......the not-too-bright nymphet who's mostly oblivious to her sexuality and the effect it has the men who salivate and fantasize over her........and Lyon more than delivered, holding her own while up against Mason, Shelly Winters and the formidably funny Peter Sellers......

                 We won't waste time on her fairly riotous personal life (a parade of husbands, including a convicted murderer)......if anyone wrote a biography of her, that's the part we would immediately skip over....

                So rest in peace Ms. Lyon........gone too soon at 73.......(when any of you reach a certain age, you'll understand the use of that 'gone too soon' phrase every time you read an obit....)