Oscar Actors: Varsi, Diane–Background, Career, Awards

Diane Marie Antonia Varsi (February 23, 1938 – November 19, 1992) was an American film actress best known for her performances in Peyton Place – her film debut, for which she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress.

She left Hollywood in order to pursue personal and artistic aims, attending Bennington College in Vermont, where she studied poetry with Ben Belitt, among others.

Varsi was born in San Mateo, California, a suburb of San Francisco, the daughter of Beatrice (née DeMerchant) and Russell Varsi.

Varsi unsuccessfully tried to become a model and a restaurant hostess in her teen years. While in high school, she was called an “oddball” by her classmates. She often played truant from school to visit San Francisco and was therefore labeled a “rebel.”

She dropped out of school in her junior year, at age 15, failing in all studies and saying: “I was bored. I didn’t like the social sides – the cliques.”

Around the same time, she married an 18-year-old man, but their marriage was annulled before her son Shawn was born.

She joined the San Francisco ballet in the 1950s and initially planned to become a folk singer. She later hitchhiked to Los Angeles with a friend.

Despite having only experience as actress in a stage production of Gigi, she made her screen debut at age 18 as Allison MacKenzie in Peyton Place (1957), receiving a Best Supporting Actress for her performance.  Several famous actresses were tested for the main role in the big-budget film, but Varsi was favored by producer Buddy Adler, who put her under contract at 20th Century Fox.

Varsi already had an agent and had been searching for film roles for a long while, without any luck. She made rounds at several studios, but they thought she was suitable for character parts only. She was even dropped by her agent in 1956, because he saw no future in her career.

Adler cast Varsi opposite Don Murray in the western From Hell to Texas (1958).

She appeared in the films Ten North Frederick (1958), as Gary Cooper’s daughter, and then Compulsion (1959). While filming Ten North Frederick, Varsi suffered nervous breakdown, collapsed and was hospitalized.

She later said: “I’m still trying to find myself. It’s still hard for me to separate illusion from reality… I don’t know whether acting is the form of creativity best for me.”

Varsi rejected the role of Meg in the comedy film Holiday for Lovers in 1959. On March 18, 1959, she suddenly left Hollywood, abandoning her contract. “I’m running away from destruction,” she claimed, “Hollywood is too impressed with superficial cheapness.”

Nevertheless, her contract with Fox did not expire until 1965. Her sudden walkout was for a long time rumored to be a publicity stunt to promote the sequel to Peyton Place, Return to Peyton Place (1961), to which Varsi was had been attached.

By walking out of her contract, Varsi’s inclusion in plans for several films were cancelled, including starring role in The Best of Everything (1959).

After leaving Hollywood, Varsi participated in local San Francisco theater productions.

She made her way to New York long, and successfully auditioned for the Actors Studio, which she would attend at least briefly in 1965. Varsi returned to film acting in the late 1960s, but by this time she was no longer offered major roles and subsequently referred to the movies she made as “cheap films of little merit”. Although producers were curious about her, they would not hire her.

Her later films include Wild in the Streets (1968), which became a cult movie; Johnny Got His Gun (1971), which Varsi described as her favorite; and an ABC Movie of the Week, The People (1971). Of Johnny Got His Gun, the actress said: “This is the kind of thing I always wanted to do. It’s been a long time to wait.” She was apprehensive about playing the role: “I felt too inadequate to do Johnny Got His Gun, it’s so intense, the responsibility.”

While in Hollywood, Varsi was known for being unglamorous, wearing no make-up or expensive clothes. She avoided Hollywood parties and was quoted as saying: “I’d rather meet Aldous Huxley than Clark Gable.” Her fellow Fox actors remembered her as “frightened, birdlike, bewildered by her sudden success” and as “disillusioned by the way certain studio officials treated her.”

She dated Russ Tamblyn, her co-star in Peyton Place, following that film’s release. From November 26, 1956 to August 29, 1958, Varsi was married to James Dickson, whom she made her manager. She then married Michael Hausman on May 21, 1961, and they had a daughter, Willo.

In 1968, while working on Wild in the Streets, Varsi suffered trauma to her cervical spine, which led to years of misdiagnosed pain and surgeries. In 1977, she contracted Lyme disease and lived for five years with undiagnosed and unremitting meningitis that nearly brought her to death. Her Lyme disease was not diagnosed until 1989.

On November 19, 1992, Varsi died of respiratory failure and complications of Lyme disease at the age of 54.

Film

1957 Peyton Place Allison MacKenzie

1958

Ten North Frederick, Ann Chapin
From Hell to Texas, Juanita Bradley (Alternative title: Man Hunt)

1959 Compulsion, Ruth Evans

1967 Sweet Love, Bitter Della (Alternative titles: Black Love, White Love
It Won’t Rub Off, Baby!), Roseanna Mary Jane

1968 Wild in the Streets, Sally LeRoy
Killers Three, Carol Warder

1970 Bloody Mama, Mona Gibson

1971 Johnny Got His Gun, Fourth Nurse

1977 I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Sylvia (final film)

TV
1959 Playhouse 90 Lurene Dawson 1 episode
1966 Dr. Kildare 2 episodes
1969 My Friend Tony 1 episode
1971 Cannon Mrs. Hill 1 episode
1972 The People Valancy Carmody TV movie

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