The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 58

ZJ of lie I i lie oJci ndr a 3 comes 7 re in emu it onara see. At this point, she couldn't say where her next picture is coming from, although the prospects range disparately from John Wayne to Michelangelo An-tonioni. Sondra Locke, the sudden celebrity, is only slightly apologetic about the re-spelling of her name. "Actually," she said in a telephone voice that has lost its soft southern slur in studio diction class, "it always was Sondra, only spelled with an a. I've always preferred that pronunciation.

But you know how kids are: When you start to school, they go straight for the Sandy and forget about the When this picture came up, I was determined that would not happen again, so I cinched it with an o. I don't think the movies will miss having another Sandra or Sandy around." Regardless of the 1 1 i Sandra-Sondra seems to have established her beachhead in Hollywood. Her film, a character drama based on Carson Mc-Cullers' first novel about life in Selma of 1940, drew uneven notices (more pluses than minuses). But her performance of the 14-year-old Mick Kelly who feels stymied by the smalltown sameness and that of Alan Arkin, as her deaf-mute friend were almost universally admired. It's the yea r's first film in which reviewers Except for Vowels, Success Hasn'irRaliy.

Changed Her It 3 1 jT 1 VL' S-4 More than that, Gordon shelved his own career plans, returned to Tennessee and personally "designed" Sondra for the auditions, in the likeness of Mick Kelly. This meant reading the book for a feel of the character and translating that into physical terms of costuming and makeup. He re-cut and "tackied two Rich Schwartz dresses, ground shoe heels down for a worn effect, applied glue to the kneecap for a tell-tale scab, painted on freckles, put a dab of collodion behind each ear so they'd stick out, created a peeling sunburned nose. The Anderson overhaul omitted few details, not even gnawed-on fingernails, and many of these ideas were used in the film. Strike One! At Sondra's first hurdle, she fell flat on her face.

Circle Thea-, ter was contacted by the studio to hold local try-outs and dispatch the most likely candidates to Birmingham to meet Marion Dougherty, the film's casting director. The Circle's advisory panel felt that she was too old for the part and discouraged her. But she persisted and, at her own expense, traveled to the Birmingham auditions; a letter from Circle preceded her, introducing the three Nashville hopefuls and disavowing her. As it turned out, it helped her stand out from the rest of the candidates. Miss Dougherty was sufficiently impressed with Sondra to suggest an immediate audition with Joseph Strick who, fresh from his "Ulysses" triumph, was to i the film.

He was in New Orleans, which meant more expense and an all-night drive to make the 9 a.m. announced for the role, she confessed all to Strick that she lied about her age, that she did have acting experience, that she was not at all like the character he had originally interviewed. "It came as quite a relief to him," she recalled. "He told me, 'Do you think that makes any difference! I didn't want a little novice I had to pull a performance out Studio publicists, who'd sent out mailings that she was Mick Kelly reincarnated and set up national interviews along those were less pleased. So Sondra "came on as the character" for her initial interviewers, and gradually slipped into the proper facts.

She now gives her age as 21, which is a little closer to the truth, and the latest Warn-ners handout has it all the way up to 20. Three days before shooting was to begin in Selma, Sondra's budding career got a severe jolt. Strick withdrew from the picture over "a difference of interpretation," and a new director, Robert Ellis Miller, was brought in with the authority to recast the picture as he saw fit. (He did in fact replace dead-pan comedian Jackie Vernon, in the the role of a retarded deaf-mute, with Chuck McCann, who's also subject of some Oscar talk.) But he went along with Sondra, truth and all. What To Do Next? Now, with the film in general release, Sondra is faced with the problem of following her own act.

"The second picture is almost as important as the first. I want it to be different, to let people know I'm not Mick Kelly. Most of the scripts I've been getting have been variations on the same theme. One that interests me is 'True which Paramount is making with John Wayne and Glen Campbell. But there again, it's too much like the role I just did." A sure sign that Sondra has arrived in Hollywood is that she has turned down her first nude scene.

"Unfortunately, it's Michelangelo Antonioni's first film in this country, and I'd love to hi ft running for Soutberland a t-tress). In her free time, she got In her little-theater licks Dad' Poor Dad," 'The Innocents," "A Thousand Clowns," "Tiger at the Gates," "The Glass and did a little modeling on the side for THE TEXNESSEAN fashion page. Today her worries and income have multiplied as the result of her hit film debut in Warner Arts' "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," opening here Oct. 18 at the Tennes 4 r'- came right out and labeled the players worthy of Academy Award consideration. Right now both stars are the Oscar talk of the industry.

"Warners thinks I have a good chance of being nominated in the best actress category," Sondra relayed, "and an even better one of winning in supporting. It's a borderline r-mance that could go either way. But you never know how those things'll turn out. I'm working very bard at not getting my hopes up. "I've seen the picture once, at a press screening in Hollywood, and I loved it.

I was so afraid that I wouldn't like it, that, I'd find something to pick at, but I can't. I think I'd feel that way, even if I didn't have so much at stake. In a sense, I am sorta detached from the picture. It's like watching someone else up there on the screen. Mick is not anything like me nor should she be.

When I saw that, I felt I'd done my job as an actress." Call It Cinderella Hollywood has a name for a success story like Sondra's. It's the old Cinderella syndrome, and publicists love to fall back on it at every opportunity. (No, Virginia, Lana Turner was Not discovered on a soda-fountain stool.) So it was that a Warners press release dated Sept. 14, 1967, sent out the word that a "17-year-old Cinderella from Shelbyville, Tenn. (population had ended a nation-wide search for, an unknown actress to play Mick.

But those who knew Sondra realized that if stardom came her way it did because she went after it Locke, stock and barrel; what is not generally known is the extremes of schemes and intrigue that were required to get and keep the role. The real story behind the studio-spun Cinderella myth is a tribute to the die-hard tenacity that a performer needs to become a star. Principal accomplice in Sondra's determined bid for stardom as Gordon Anderson, her childhood sweetheart, stage co-star and string-pulling Svengali; they married last September during the filming in Selma. At the time the casting call for Mick was issued, Gordon was appearing off-Broadway in "Until the Monkey Comes" (which won him the same most promising newcomer award that Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dimaway received in previous years). It was he who urged her, long-distance, to try for the part.

By HARRY kU Motion Picture jpditor SONDRA Locke? We knew her ben; when" hei name was Sandra Locke and she had Just trooped up from her native Shelbyville to set the big city of Nashville on its ear. It took her three and a half years, but she did Thirteen months ago Sandra starred in the promotion department at WSM-TV. where her weekly worries were the television log listings that had to be corrected for the newspapers. The closest she ever came to a camera in this interim was to do an occasional commercial (for Rich Schwartz, Belle Camp Chocolates and one that's still ill First-love is one form of escape for the restless character Sondra plays. The young boy, Wayne Smith, also marks his "Hollywood debut" in the movie.

Actually, it was filmed last fall in the story's original locale, Selma. Accompanied by actor-husband Gordon Anderson, Sondra Locke attended the world-premiere of her first movie, "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," last month in New York City. The film is scheduled to open here Oct. 1 8 at the Tennessee. When in Southern California visit Universal City StudiostJ fflotf -V "TO'' film's original Prissy, Butterfly McQueen, posed with her) and Verushka in "Blowup." From the movie's premiere until last Sunday, Sondra has been in Shelbyville, resting up and readying for a major relocation to Hollywood.

Out there they say Sandra with an anyway and if she gets to be a famous enough fixture, she may find herself back to Sandy. NEXT ATTRACTION IN A MADf) rSIrD 1.... inrsi i.uili RATMOND WAGNER PRODUCTION the uncommon movie; Compo5tdan)Cxduf ltd by John Bar BionnoveibyjoiitW ROnMRU LLOILI 3 acvtri MlIO i I i three ultra-chic magazines coming out in November a cover spread in Vogue, a layout on Yves St. Laurent originals in Harper's Bazaar and a i 1 fashion feature for Eye. For the latter, Gordon got her up as her favorite movie characters Holly Goiightly in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," Rima in "Green Mansions," Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind" (that DAVID DANNER 4.

AT lK stgritorflfe i. till lf0m cmsnE "WTn GEORGE C5CO LB 1 1... I v' -te- 1 1 work with him. But there's one completely nude scene in it I think he's trying to 'Blowup' and I'm just not ready for that at this stage of the game." However, there are some very un-Mickish things in Sondra's future. While in New York last month meeting the movie press and doing network interviews, she wangled fashion layouts in CHAMBER LAIN EST UN andJUOLI i 00 I is appointment.

I was the next day with blood-shot eyes, trying to act 14 and feeling But the audition went well, and Sondra left with a script to study on. Two days later Strick called her to New York this time at studio expense for more conferences. There, she learned to her dismay that the talent search included the whole country, not just five or six southern cities as she initially believed. While she was reading scenes for Strick and adapter-producer Thomas C. Ryan, the studio was interviewing a couple of thousand actresses, both amateur and professional.

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