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Show Ampersand 24 women's movement for her searing illumination of the female condition. Hassett was anxious to observe incognito the first public reaction to a film that represents the most demanding role of her career to date. Not that she hasn't scored with difficult parts before The Bell Jar. In The Other Side of the Mountain and it's sequel, she delivered an altogether convincing performance as skier Jill Kinmont, whose hopes for a spot on the 1956 Winter Olympic team were dashed by an accident which left her paralyzed from the waist down. The strength and courage demonstrated in Kinmont's rehabilitation were qualities Hassett was called upon to muster in her own life when, at age 21, during filming of a commercial for a her pelvis and legs were crushed by an car nicknamed the "Maxi-Bruteelephant who obviously hadn't studied his lines. Doctors felt she might never walk again, but, she proved their after a year of grueling physical therapy and amazing The Other Side of the for from more than 400 girls auditioning prognoses wrong. (Selected Mountain, Hassett never mentioned her own parallel experience to the filmmakers until long after she had been chosen.) can be a piece of cake compared with the recurrent nature Conquering a physical of mental traumas. The Bell Jar is a thinly disguised recreation of six very real months in the life of the book's author, Sylvia Plath, who suffered a nervous breakdown during her twentieth year (the period in 1953 covered in the novel and film) and committed suicide a decade later. Hassett's recreation of Esther Greenwood's crack-u- p was particularly painful, because she'd undergone one of her own. It's still a subject she's hesitant about revealing to outsiders, although she admits its relevance to her work on The Bell Jar. "Not only did I go through it again, but I went further, sometimes not knowing whether I was going to come back or not when I was on the set. I knew they weren't going to put me away, because I was 'acting'." The coincidence of their respective bouts with madness was not sufficient preparation for Hassett to assume the persona of Esther Greenwood. Hassett immersed herself in all existing works by Plath, from the anguished poetry of Ariel and The Colossus, for which the writer was so highly esteemed, to the more conventional short stories she tried so desperately to write and sell to outlets like The New Yorker and, strange as it may seem. Ladies' Home Journal. "There were so many different parts to her," reflects Hassett affectionately on Plath. "She wanted to have a lot of money. She also wanted to hav e a lot of power. She wanted to be a mother with two kids and a station wagon. She wanted to be a free woman and never get married, maybe have a homosexual affair and not feel guilty about it. She wanted to have blonde hair and big tits and a sexy ass. She wanted it all. She wanted 100 percent." Hassett has vied with these extremes in her own life, referring to her duality jokingly as "the Nazi and the Junkie." Born December 17, 1947, Hassett grew up in Whittier, California, renowned hometown of our 37th President. "I didn't talk until I was three years old, and then I demanded chocolate ice cream," she proudly recalls, w ith memories of her toddler self no doubt aided by her father, a car dealer, and her mother, dubbed "Miss Ammunition" during a brief fling with show business. After an interrupted stint in high school at Immaculate Heart in Hollywood ('T quit," she says. "I was silenced for defending atheism."), she entered college at Cal State Fullerton in the heart of Orange County. Hoping to enter the Peace Corps, she enrolled in a in an drama course attempt to conquer her prohibitive shyness. Soon she lost both her social inhibitions and her missionary zeal, becoming so obsessed with her newfound craft that she d sometimes hold down three simultaneous part-tim- e jobs to pay for special acting classes. for she was me," "College says, especially now that the Orange County very frustrating with her new ambitions as an actress. "! aspirations were becoming so blatantly which was so embarrassing, because was driving to L.A. to be a Catalina swimsuit model e in it 45 bucks an hour so that I could drive suit but a I'd never worn paid my life, back into L.A. the next day and have an acting lesson." By the time she was 20, she had already done 39 national television commercials, including spots for Ivory Snow, Honda and Pepsodent. 1 hen came the assault of the "Maxi Brute," which put her out of commission and onto workmen's compensation for awhile. Hassett got a little more work in commercials and films, most memorably a bit part in hey Shoot Horses, Don't They? Then, she recalls. T became Miss Sterling Electronics, the worst job of my life. They sent me all over the country in this little silver lame Rudi Gernreic h thing w ith a I was silver cowboy hat. I looked at myself in the mirror one day in San Jose making $300 a off lame took boots and went. WAAGGGHHH!!! What am day, all expenses paid my silver I doing??! I ran up to San Francisco and hid in a little hote l in Sausalito for three weeks." She was under contract to Sterling, and one of her bosses Hew in from their lexas home office with promises of a bright, long future with the firm. As he reached the point in the "You're going to have to realie. Maiilvn. where he delivered his message she slammed dow n her fist and screamed. " that success only comes with compromise"' Marilyn Hassetfs Career: Cheery From Paralysis To Breakdowns set-ba- Marilyn Hassett bounds up the steps to the front door of her Italianate villa overlooking Los Angeles. She wears gnarled Addidas and tattered Levis, with shirttails flapping beneath a down-fille- d vest. In one hand she clutches a Dynel wig whose brunette bubble cut has long since lost its set and flipped out of control. Inside the house, she models her new do. "Do I look like Marilyn Hassett?" she wonders, grinning ironically beneath synthetic curls. A frump, perhaps, but a movie star never! Off comes the ridiculous wig and down tumbles a stream of fine, straight, golden brown hair. A movie star! In two days Avco Embassy would sneak preview The Bell Jar before unsuspecting audiences in Palo Alto and San Francisco. Hassett stars in the screen version of Sylvia Plath's novel: in recent years Plath has been virtually canonized by the ' V a 1 I 1 ' i ' ' ' - ck arch-conservati- ve I f ol ," Pile by Susan April, 1979 1 out-of-syn- two-piec- j .': I - i '" I I " . heart-to-hea- rt i not compromise!" Hugh Romney, otherwise known as Wavy Gravy, invited Hassett to join his legendary Sixties commune, the Hog Farm, to jaunt around the world and perform street theater with the collective. They traveled through most of the states in the- Union and moved on to France, where she got off the bus, as it were, w Inle her compadrc s went on to Nepal. " was not an easy life, living with the Hog Farm," she reflects. Hassett returned to Los Angeles, determined to plunge back into acting with total energy. Rather than tackle an assignment ascountei-produlive to her goal as "Miss Sterling Electronics," she drove a taxi. She had decided to join her brother in the Roc kies and form her own Shakespeare an company when a call ame fiom Universal asking her to interview for the part of Jill Kinmont in 'J he Other Side o the Mountain. Director Larry Peerce, who discovered Ali MacGraw for (iondhye (iolumhus. picked Hassett from hundreds e(f ac tresses auditioning for the role and then lired her the first we k ol shooting, saving, "It's O.K., kiel. We'll pay yeu oil. We- got another girl." "Hedidn't like- the- reading I was doing." explains Hassett. "I he next das gave- him a lot of htie se k, and he went for it." He still seems to be going lor it thev now live logeihei. It was Peerce- who introduc eel her to 'Ihe Hell Jar almost three- seals ago and eveniualls guided her the Esther's bi of n. through nightmare At this moment in her career, Hassett is trying to shake hei ide ritifn ation with the- Sylvia Plath character. "I'm trying to get on with my eiwn life," she- says. "It temk me- lour months to have my own dreams." She's also attempting te lesise he r se re n image as a girl with set ions I think it s due-,- ' she problems, physical, mental or otherwise. "I'm looking for a cornedv muses. "I believe all comedy comes from pain, and I have- a savings ae ount eif it. I just want to - 1 - - -- . V I c e - - ' t ' ' - - - - - I - ' , ' i . . ' . - ' v ' . I 4 I e - ge t it out." c - c |
