30 - North Shore News — Friday, November 26, 1999

Refusing the

Robert Aiken
Contributing Writer

Te is the very error of the moon: she cones more
nearer carth than she was wont, and makes
men mad.” —~ Othello, V. iv 109-1 EL,

ALTHOUGH it is uncharacteristic
of me to watch motion pictures on
television, I recently found myself
tuning in on no less than three late
*60’s movies within a week.

Ten North Frederick, Compulsion and Peyton
Place... all starring, the young, warm, compas:
sionate Diane Vai ‘oman with whonr [ was
once truly, mad . besotted (circa 1968).
I'm talking intoxicatedly drenched (to the point

Hollywood (after hiaving left
intriguing legend of herself). I, in full “rescuer”
mode...deep sea diving, exploring her magnetic,
patchouli-enhanced richness.

A very quiet, soulful lady she was — a calm
and penetratingly powerful tempest; falling in
love with the Ikes of her was lik finding myself,
or, rather, losing myself (which can be “a good
thing”) in a vast ocean of incredibly beautifi:
bur depictingly warm subtropical waters
* “unfathomab! ‘depths and powerful undercur-
‘rents that contrive zo suck you under.

- Quite an initiation for a Hollywood
actor/writer/astrologer who had scrupulously
‘avoided allowing his considerabic desire nature
full sway since arriving in Hollywood in 59,
~ shortly after Varsi had departed the scene

‘Te was her Venus-on-the-halt-shell n
holeptic yearning for the seemingly unattainable
that especially. touched.me and drove me to dis-
traction. She had been through the proverbial
‘emotional mill. I wanted to support, to help her,
which I was eventually able to clo,

The fan magazines, during the mid-’60s, had
been wating things like: Diane Varsi couldn't

“cope with fame, success, sudden glariour and
the buildup thar went with her discovery and
immediate stardom via Peyton Place. Part of the
‘perceived problem was her lack of background
or preparation for being an actress.

She was, therefore, uncquipped to separate
her own identity from that of the character she
was playing. If, on screen, she had to be silent,
morose, suicidal, then she was unable te turn off
these feelings when she removed her screen
mnake-up and went home to her little boy,

“Shar

Varsi didi't like what het career was doing, to
her. She hated the publicity, the prying ques-
tions, the exploding tlashbulbs. She resented
people trying to tell her how she must dre
walk and talk in order to keep her stardom, She

¢ life stripped so com-
he felt herself ¢
nakec before a group of peeping Toms.

Acting, from the first, had been emotionally
and mentally pa

en got pl

— neither the coutside laver, nor the inner.
Instead, she just went home and began packing
all of her posses . There weren’t very many
things to be p {— she hadi't been around
long enough to accumulate much. Whatever few
jons belonged to her and were a part of
outside of Hollywood, she put neatly
into packing cartons and took
along.
The rest — the supertluous
“junk” she fefi behind. She and
Shawn went to tie airport and

statements It has wath to do with the
dio (20th Century Fos LL jst don’ want
to act anymore, or to be a part of this business. 1
don't like some of the ways of Hellywood. But
my reasons go deeper, much deeper. It is the
rforming itself T object ta. tind it too
destructive to me. [fT have any talent ( val try
to find some other outlet for it that will make
me less unhappy.”

Tr was in March, 1959, thar Diane Varsi flew
away from Hollywood. Tossed away su
Gave up a career that millions would hav
jumped at.

it’s been four years since her exodus, and,
today, Diane Varsi is a happy, fulfilled woman!
She has remarried. She lives in the San Francisco
Bay area with her husband, Shawn and a brand
new baby. She is content. She is serene. Away
from the Hollywood fishbowl, she has found
more meaningful.

For her, it was the only answer. Diane had to
swim upstream, against the current. She had to
refuse to let the bait of Tinseltown hook her
irretrievably. She had ta wriggle away from the
nets which engulf the famous. She had to leave
the spodight to find herself. Hers is one extreme
way of solving the question of how to cope with
fame.

But, in her solution, Diane did prove that a
person can be happy sans glamour, sans inicrna-
tional success, 621s autograph hounds and fan
mail. For her, life away from Hollywood was che
only anwwer. If she had stayed there, she confid-
ed in a friend, “1 would have been destroyed!”

What the somewhat bohemian Diane F knew

See Enslaved Page th

ure of Tinse

BY her 21st birthday Diane Varsi had been divorced twice, had a gon Shaw
and had ianded a prime screen role in Peyton Place.

Expires Novembor 2, 1988.
Not velid with any otaar offée,