The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 570

iviovies works, but has to subordinate his career to Mark's. He had been responsible for getting Mark started in film work, when, nine years ago, he was doing a commercial and learned that a small boy was needed for it. He suggested his 2V-year-old son who. was readily given the part. was a very pretty for the boy.

Even with Mark's good fortune in commercials and bit parts in some nine feature films prior to there was no indication, that he would suddenly be faced with almost overwhelming princely notoriety. "We had no idea really of what was going to mm From then on it was obvious that Mark's was a bankable name. Columbia knew it right off and even before 'Oliver's' release, they assigned him to 'Run Wild, Run An idea of the type of recognition these two films have brought to the relatively tyro actor can be seen from the results of the Moscow Film Festival earlier this year. Mark, represented by both films, was given a special Silver Medal for his outstanding performance in which was viewed at the festival by nearly 13,000 people in a huge amphitheater with a screen the size of a sound stage wall. -Both his films won the top prizes in their individual categories.

The Columbia public relations office reports that not a single day passes witout a bundle of mail for Mark. One secretary -who forwards the letters to England said, "I wish I could help answer some of it. "OiVerJ" star Mark Lester has his lips tickled by cosiar Susan Oliver while Mark's father Mike watches I on set at Valt Disney Studios. The youngsters were filming a two-part episode for American TV audience. Mark Lester Wants to Be Normal BY GABE ESSOE People are so interested in him." Columbia, too, is interested in Mark.

They tried to sign him to a long-term contract. Mike nixed it because he thought it would be unhealthy for the boy1; "No studio should be allowed to dictate a child's life, for the next seven years. Or even the next seven Under his father's protective guidance, Mark gives seemingly normal responses to both questions and situations. When asked about Russia, he answers, I hated it. It was horrible.

There was no place you could get a hamburger, just awful stuff to eat." The things that excite him are not premieres, or snatching a part like "Oliver!" from 2,000 other boys, but getting a bike for Christmas or swimming over the weekend. While on the Disney set, Mark studies under a tutor, who observed: "Mark is very bright. He does well in school and is better mannered than the average child actor." A certain number of hours have to be logged every day in cjass while in production. Toward the end of the school session one day, Mark went to the tutor and whispered, "Why don't you set your watch ahead a bit so I can get out of school early?" She smiled the obvious answer. When meeting the angelically good-looking, 11-year-old Mark Lester, who had international fame thrust upon him by last year's Academy Award winning one is impressed by the fact that he is more a normal English boy than a prepubescent wonderstar.

Mike Lester, Mark's youngish, equally handsome father, works very hard at keeping him that way. As the Lesters sit on Disney sound stage No. 4 working on dialog between takes on a two-part Wonderful World of Disney TV segment called "The Boy Who Stole the Elephant," Mike plays all of the other characters, reads camera directions aloud, as well as interprets Mark's lines for him. "You can say to him to act despondent, but he doesn't know what despondent is. No more than he would know how to play a drunk," Mike explains later.

"You play it out for him and then he mimics you. Mark's an excellent mimic and takes direction well. He acts from within. important. I chastized him just now because he'd been acting up and running around all morning.

It had nothing to do with rehearsing his lines. Actually he gets much more discipline at home, but never because of not wanting to I mean he would work all the time if he could. I'm certainly not the heavy Victorian with him but really you can't let him become too self-important. I would expect; anyone to tell him that he's cheeky or sassy. I would hope that every6ne will treat him like a child.

The way he's treated by others is the way he's going to act. Fortunately, this business hasn't affected him all that much." Mike follows Mark's movements in front of the camera closely. His hard line melts. "He's a very polite child, actually. But he's got his whole life ahead of him and this insane business could destroy him by the time he's 18.

We realize that and try to adjust for it by making Mark's life as normal as possible." The Lester household in London no more revolves around their fair-haired boy today than it did in years past. Mark gets no special privileges at home. When he's not working which in former years has been about half the time but is rapidly diminishing as his commitments increase he attends public school. His classmates treat him as "one of- the guys." Of his enormous earnings, 90 goes into a trust for him, and after commissions and salaries, 60 cents weekly filters back to Mark for spending money. Although.

Mark readily admits that he would "much rather be making films than going to school," Mike feels that "whether Mark realizes it or not, he's being deprived. He misses a lot really because he is an actor. And, as a child, there's always the danger of being abused. I see it all the time in the business. Little kids like Mark who can't protect themselves, being thumped in the back to stand up straight at a casting session or pushed in front of a camera because their father is a director or writer.

I hate stage mothers; the whole scene actually. It's very selfish indeed. Just because you want to see your kid on the screen. Or doing something you were never able to do." Mike talkfl knowingly of the "business," having been a "spear-carrier" ia motion pictures and a much-used male model in London for years. He still tut j.

A But really, he's only a little boy and needs direction." They read through the script, pausing for interpretation, when Mark, perhaps weary at 8 in the morning (and in imitation of other kid actors on the set), says impatiently, "Oh, dad, can't you carry it through to the end?" "Have you read the stage directions?" "Yes," he steams and hisses through a pulled face, rolling his eyes upward. Mike quietly, but firmly, chides the boy: "Don't you talk to me in that tone of voice. Don't you dare talk back to me! You've been much too cheeky this trip." Mark puts on better behavior. As they continue, Mark withdraws from his pocket a pair of handcuffs newly purchased from a magic shop on Hollywood Blvd. He begins fooling with them in split concentration.

"Give me those things," Mike says, calmly removing the handcuffs from Mark's wrists. The rehearsal progresses to the end of the scene. "Can I go now, dad? Please, dad, I'm getting bored." "Not until you're needed on the set. YouH sit right there for being rude." After Mark is called for the next shot, Mike explains, "One thing he won't be is spoiled. He's fawned upon so much and coddled and made to feel MARK LESTER TWENTY-flGHT.