Actress Betsy Palmer aka Mrs. Voorhees!!! |
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Actress
Betsy Palmer has had a long & incredible career working along side
such established actors as Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Anthony Perkins,
Joan Crawford, and many, many more. She's worked in every medium from
TV to stage to movies, but most genre fans will always recognize her
as the mother of Jason Voorhees from the Friday The 13th films. We talked
to Betsy Palmer about her huge body of work, her experiences on the
original Friday The 13th & her recent convention experiences. -
by Mike C., Robg. 5/04
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I hadnt been around a TV set, because people didn't have that many sets in those days. He said there was going to be a show with this band leader, who was well known and I cant remember his name. He was involved with this woman who owned a lingerie store on Michigan Ave in Chicago and she was going to sponsor a 15 minute show for him to be the kind of master of ceremonies and I was going to be his "girl Friday". Ive always been able to talk and love to talk, I was the one that talked about things and then there were girls who modeled lingerie on camera.
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We went to a party at her sister Tobys house, her sister worked on "The Molly Goldberg Show", she was the PA on the show. Her husband was Frank Sutton, remember he was on "Gomer Pyle", well, in those days he couldnt get himself arrested. So Frank and Toby were having this little gathering and there was this man sitting in the corner with three other guys sitting around him. I heard him say, "Well, shed be perfect for it". He motioned me to come over and he said, "Are you an actress". He said, "On Monday go up to the Ted Ashley office and go and see this guy." I went in on Monday and told this man he sent me. They asked, "Do you have a southern accent", and I said, "I sur enuff do, honey", and I got the job. I was on a soap opera that originated out of Philadelphia. We actors would commute on the train everday to do this live soap. It was called "Miss Susan", Susan Peters, who was the lead had been a starlet of films. She was taking so many painkillers that after a while she couldnt function anymore and the show lasted for about three or four months. |
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Well...it turned out to be the first "Wheel of Fortune", and it wasnt anything like the show it turned out to be. I was on the original one and there was another one I did with Mike Wallace. The first major nighttime drama I did was called, "Hollywood Screen Test" where they took an unknown person with a known person and you did this half-hour show live. The known person was Jackie Cooper and I was the unknown, which was very interesting because the first movie I ever saw was "Treasure Island". When did you first break into features? My first two movies were John Ford movies. The first one was the Long Gray Line, with Tyrone Power and Maureen oHara. The second one I did for Mr. Ford was Mister Roberts. That was before Ford left the picture. He shot our girl sequence in Hawaii, and Mervyn LeRoy wanted to reshoot it out in Hollywood and I wouldnt go back and do it. I wanted Fords hand to be the touch of the scenes that we did. The third movie was "The Tin Star" with Henry Fonda and Tony Perkins. Then they put me under contract at Columbia Pictures before I made the first film and I was to do two films a year. |
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She was a top, top actress. She was a MOVIE STAR. Big pictures. When I was doing "Friday the 13th", well, you know she did "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane", when she and Bette Davis couldnt get themselves arrested, and I kept saying to Sean Cunningham, "Are you sure this is the way Bette Davis and Joan Crawford made their comeback?" [laughs].
So you were still doing stage at the time? I never left it! I loved the stage. I always loved it. I dont think film is really an actors medium, its a directors medium, and a producer and your cameraman and your sound man.... Everybodys got all of this going on. You can do a wonderful thing, but your best stuff can be left on the cutting room floor. I did all kinds of musicals, Hello Dolly, The King and I, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Peter Pan. Actually, Sandy Duncan, the Peter Pan who became very big, she played my Wendy, it was her first acting role. I did Eccentricities of a Nightingale, which was the last show that Tennessee Williams had anything to do with while he was still alive, and it was beautiful working with him. Didnt you even do a genre play, Countess Dracula? I did Countess Dracula, yes. It was a play that was written for me up in the Arena Theater in Buffalo. I did "A Dolls House" for them, and "Countess Dracula". I played three different roles, I played Elizabeth Von Helsing, which is the doctor that tracks Dracula, I played Lady Alucard. Then I played the Countess. In fact, my first entrance on-stage was as Elizabeth and I had to change and I had to get to my Lady Alucard outfit. I was at the door thirty seconds later, pulling on my black gloves, and talking with a very deep voice. The audience didnt know it was me because I changed so quickly. Pretty soon, after two, three minutes youd hear them whispering, "Its Betsy!". You then went back to television in the early 70's... Went back? I never left television. I was doing Studio One. I did the Philco Playhouse, United States Steel Hour. I did the first Playhouse 90 that was ever done where they had a show that was an hour and a half long. That was with Jackie Gleason.
What happened was I was on Broadway, I did the last year and half of "Same Time, Next Year" and by this time I was living in Connecticut. I was driving home to Connecticut after the performance that night and my car just clonked out on me. It was Mercedes that I had for many, many years. I could never find anybody to fix it right and it finally just pooped out. I was on my way home and I didnt get home until five o clock in the morning. So I said to the universe, or god: "Universe, or god, whatever, I need a new car". I went out and I was looking and found a Volkswagen. I decided I was going to buy that. So, my agent called me on Friday and said, "How would you like to do a movie". I said, "Great, I hadnt done a movie since the 1960's. Is it going to be in California?" He said, "No, its going to be shot in New Jersey. Its ten days work and theyll give you a $1000 a day."
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Oh no! And I never met any of those kids! I only worked with that last girl, that's the only one I saw. We did it at a Boy Scout camp. The night I was driving up to see Tommy Savini, it was all just beginning for him too, I remember there was a sign that said Crystal Lake. I thought that was a good omen. I used to spend my summers at a Crystal Lake in Warsaw, Indiana with my dad and brother. Then they immediately took me to Tommy Savinis workshop and they started to make my head that night. I remember the night I finished doing all that fighting on the beach, and this of course wasnt in the summer anymore, we were into the fall. We would have snow sometimes. We had finished that sequence and I went up to the cabin to get out of my wet clothes. I said I want to get out of this stuff, and I never knew how they did it. I know Tom was the one that wielded the machete. Was that all you in the fighting? Thats me. Yes. How did you prepare for all the fighting? I didnt prepare for the fighting. I mean, I was acting a role. I was taught the real method of acting where you do an autobiography for the character and you make a story happen before you come on stage. These people always have a life before you portray them. My story for myself about Pamela Voorhees was that she was in high school, and she and this boy fell in love and they were going steady. And in those days gals just didnt go to bed with guys. So I figured they did make love and she became pregnant. So she finally has to tell her parents and her father throws her out of the house. I had done a lot of work for the Salvation Army, they had a service for unwed mothers, so I figured she went there and had the baby. Of course, she had no education and didnt know how to earn a living. Then when Tommy was showing me some Poloroid pictures of his special effects there was this one....I said, who is this? He said thats Jason, your son. I said, "why does he look so strange". He said, "Oh, hes a mogoloid". I said, "Well that wasnt in the script!". So not only did I have this child out of wedlock, but I also had a child that was born with a handicap. So I got this job at a summer camp so he could be around other children, and thats how the job came to pass. But then those kids weren't watching my boy, my Jason when they should have been! This my story, the autobiography. Its why I killed all the kids! They let me boy drown. I tried to warn them! So there... now youve got the whole story about Friday the 13th. What was it like working with Sean Cunningham? Sean was very good. He really made this film happen. I remember, well sometimes when youre doing something so hokey as this seemed to me, youd kind of want to overact. Like put your arm up over your face and go "He! He! He!", and he wouldnt let me do that. He said, no play it straight. And I did. I played her totally straight. I only saw it twice after it opened. Then I never saw it again until last year at one of those conventions.
Any memorable experiences on the set of "Friday the 13th"? That one sequence where I have to haul off and hit her. I said to Adrienne that night "Why dont we rehearse this scene, I have to slap you.", because on-stage when you slap somebody, you slap them.
Any idea why the film became so successful? You know, I was dumb, "Friday the 13th" is an excellent film. I am now called the Queen of the Slashers, and it was the first of the slasher movies. I remember there was a girl who called in on a radio show, and finally I said, "Why do you all love Mrs. Voorhees the way you do". And she said, because we understand why you did it. So, there you go.
Was it true you were asked to reprise the role for "Freddy vs. Jason"? Yea, actually they approached me about a couple other ones, but they never wanted to pay me, they offered me scale. I guess theyre cutting corners, saving bucks, after making billions. They said it was only two days, I said Id work 200 days. Pay me what you pay the men! I said thank you, but no thank. Then I hear they got someone to look and sound like me. Of course all the Friday the 13th fans tell me they knew it wasnt me. And anyway, the scenes were dumb. The first Friday the 13th was really a hunk of something I could act. You took part in the Friday the 13th Reunion, what was that like?
Thank you so much for taking some time out to talk to us, Betsy. And thanks for being such a sweetheart!
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