Lyon's age

Although Vladimir Nabokov originally thought that Sue Lyon was the right selection to play Lolita, years later Nabokov said that the ideal Lolita would have been Catherine Demongeot, a young French actress who had played the child Zazie in Louis Malle's Zazie in the Metro (1960). The tomboyish Demongeot was four years younger than Lyon.^[12]

In Nabokov's novel, the character Lolita is 12 years old.^[13] Lyon was 14^[3]–15^[13] during most of production, and a month shy of her 16th birthday when the film premiered.^[14][13][15] Although Kubrick raised the age of Lolita to dampen down the backlash from censors and pressure groups in a time when the Production Code was still in force, his Lolita was still considered one of the most controversial films of the day because of the scandalous relationship at its heart.^[16]

In the opening paragraphs of the novel, Nabokov writes, "She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock." The adolescent Sue Lyon was 5'3 inches tall (160 centimeters) and had a developed bust, whereas the Lolita in the novel is a flat-chested 12 year old and likely pre-pubescent. Kubrick was counseled by people at the Production Code Administration that he had to cast an actress with developed breasts or he would run afoul of the Hays Code.

Producer James B. Harris explained that 14 year-old Sue Lyon looked older than her age: "We knew we must make [Lolita] a sex object [...] where everyone in the audience could understand why everyone would want to jump on her." He also said, in a 2015 Film Comment interview, "We made sure when we cast her that she was a definite sex object, not something that could be interpreted as being perverted."

Harris said that he and Kubrick, through casting the older Sue Lyon, changed Nabokov's book as "we wanted it to come off as a love story and to feel very sympathetic with Humbert."^[17]

Sue Lyon was cast so that the relationship of the onscreen Humbert Humbert and Lolita would not look sexually perverse. Ironically, months after Lolita was released, the Hays Code was amended in October 1962 to allow "sex aberrations" on screen.^[10]

Critical reaction

Stanley Kubrick's Lolita had its world premiere on June 13, 1962 at Loew's State Theatre in New York City, two days after its press screening.^[18][19] Lolita was released in West Germany on June 21 and had its London premiere on September 6. It was released in France on November 5.^[20]

Lolita (1962) theatrical release poster featuring Sue Lyon in heart-shaped sunglasses 

West Side Story was number one at the box office that week, and would be succeeded by the Cary Grant-Doris Day comedy That Touch of Mink the week of June 27. In an article published in The New York Times on June 24, a fortnight after he had reviewed Lolita, Bosley Crowther compared it to That Touch of Mink, arguing that both films emphasized cruelty towards men.

In Crowther's original New York Times review, he noted that the screenplay of film changed the tenor of the story, and Lyon was not the child of the book. It became a more conventional tale of an older man and younger woman. He wrote, "She looks to be a good 17 years old, possessed of a striking figure and a devilishly haughty teenage air." He went on, "The distinction is fine, we will grant you, but she is definitely not a 'nymphet.'"^[14]

Dwight McDonald, in a review in the September 1962 issue of Esquire Magazine, called the film disappointing.^[21]

Pauline Kael defended the casting of Sue Lyon in the part, noting that American girls in the early 1960s often looked much more physically mature for their age than did girls of comparable age in the past. A fan of Kubrick's adaptation, Kael wrote, "The surprise of Lolita is how enjoyable it is; it's the first new American comedy since those great days in the 40's when Preston Sturges recreated comedy with verbal slapstick.... At times it's so far out that you gasp as you laugh.^[22]

A contemporary review in Variety was dismissive of the production in its opening lines, "Vladimir Nabokov's witty, grotesque novel is, in its film version, like a bee from which the stinger has been removed. It still buzzes with a sort of promising irreverence, but it lacks the power to shock and, eventually, makes very little point either as comedy or satire."^[23]

The Variety staff review ended with an appraisal of Lyon:

"Sue Lyon makes an auspicious film debut as the deceitful child-woman who'd just as soon go to a movie as romp in the hay. It's a difficult assignment and if she never quite registers as either wanton or pathetic it may be due as much to the compromises of the script as to her inexperience."

In 1962, MGM Records released a 7" vinyl single recorded by Lyon, singing the lyrics "Ya ya" in Nelson Riddle's Lolita Ya Ya, a send up of yé-yé singers. The B-side had her singing "Turn off The Moon".^[24] Both songs were co-written by producer James B. Harris' brother, J. Robert Harris. Neither song charted.

Sue Lyon attended the 35th Academy Awards. The picture's sole nomination was Vladimir Nabokov for Oscar for Best Screenplay Adapted From Another Medium, but he lost to Horton Foote, who adapted To Kill a Mockingbird for the screen.

Effect on Sue Lyon's psyche

Sue Lyon was 15 when the film premiered in June 1962,^[14] too young to watch the film in a theater.^[7] She became an instant celebrity and won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer—Female.^[25]

Though Lyon rarely entered the public realm after the end of her film career in the 1980s, in 1996 she made an appearance. During this she said, "My destruction as a person dates from that movie. Lolita exposed me to temptations no girl of that age should undergo.^[26] I defy any pretty girl who is rocketed to stardom at 14 in a sex nymphet role to stay on a level path thereafter."^[26][27][28]

According to her daughter Nona Harrison, Sue Lyon suffered from bipolar disorder.^[29]

Grade Z movie star

Towards the end of the 1970s, she began appearing in Z movies, including two produced by Charles Band. In her first movie for Band, Crash! (1977), Oscar-winner Jose Ferrer played her husband, who is trying to kill her. She retaliates by using her occult powers to manipulate objects to kill him.

In her second film for Band, Lyon played the wife of Christopher Lee's astrophysicist character in the sci-fi movie End of the World, which received poor reviews after it was released in 1977 as part of a double-bill with another low budget sci-fi flick.^[38] Lee later lamented his participation in the film, claiming he was misled as to the quality of the picture by producer Band.^[39]

Lyon followed this up with a part in The Astral Factor, which was also known as The Astral Fiend on its initial release in 1978. Yet another low budget sci-fi flick, the Astral movie went through three directors. She then graced Towing, a low-budget comedy film based on newspaper columnist Mike Ryoko's expose of unethical vehicle towing companies. Also known as Who Stole My Wheels? and Garage Girls, the Chicago-based movie featuring one of the first appearances of actor Dennis Franz got one and one-half stars from critic Roger Ebert.^[40]

She ceased working in the entertainment industry after a bit part in the 1980 B-movie Alligator. In 1984, a recut version of The Astral Factor re-titled Invisible Strangler was released, making it the last time Sue Lyon appeared in a motion picture.

Allegation of underage affair with producer

In 2020, Michelle Phillips told journalist Sarah Weinman that producer James B. Harris became emotionally involved with Sue Lyon during her stay in England to shoot Lolita and that Harris had become her first lover when she was 14 years old. When contacted by Weinman, the 92-year-old Harris refused to respond to the allegation with an affirmation or denial. At the time Stanley Kubrick's Lolita was in production, the age of consent in the UK was 16 years old and 18 in Lyon's home state of California.^[51] Harris was nearly 18 years older than Lyon, and a married man.

Film

Television