“Her Skirts Cover Her Knees”
by Leslie Raddatz
…and that’s not the only difference between Sara Lane and most starlets
For an actress whose parents are both veteran theatrical and motion-picture performers…
Who received a round of applause from a crowded Broadway theater the night she was born…
Who was raised “on the road” with touring dramatic companies…
Who was appearing in television commercials before she was a year old…
And who is now co-starring in a major TV series…
Sara Lane, who plays Elizabeth Grainger in The Virginianon NBC, is probably the most untheatrical person in Hollywood – or anywhere else, for that matter.
For instance.
Just take that name. There have been grandes dames of the theater, such as Sarah Siddons and Sarah Bernhardt, but young actresses nowadays have names like Melody or Karen or Jill. And Sara Lane’s name isn’t really Sara. It’s Russel! That’s what they call her at home. It can be very confusing sometimes, because her father’s name is Russel and her mother’s name is Sara, so there are two Russels and two Saras in the house.
Then there is the matter of the house, a rambling, ranchy place near the beach at Malibu. Sara Lane does not have her own apartment like most young actresses, but lives at home (“a funny, funny, wonderful, added-on house”) with her parents, her younger brother and sister, four horses and four dogs. Sara’s bedroom, unlike the fluffy bower of the traditional actress, is a utilitarian paneled room which used to be the garage. Sara Lane wears no makeup and makes her own clothes, the skirts of which not only are not mini, they sometimes actually cover the knee!
As for escorts, they are not the Hollywood glamour boys who take her to discotheques. She admits, “There are a couple of boys I kind of like,” but she does not frequent the “in” places with them. In fact, she says, “I don’t have a very exciting social life. I don’t go out a lot. We usually just sit around the house and listen to records.” When she has to go to a business cocktail party, she says, “I’ve found my father to be the best escort.” Since she has not yet learned to drive, her father also takes her to work and brings her home.
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It was Sara’s father, veteran character actor Russell (“Rusty”) Lane, who was responsible for her coming into the world to the sound of applause. He was playing the Captain in Mister Roberts on Broadway at the time. The night of March 12, 1949, he got word near the end of the performance that his wife, actress Sara Anderson, had had a baby girl. As soon as the play was over, he told Henry Fonda about it and then left for the hospital. Fonda announced the news to the cast as they lined up for curtain calls. The other performers were applauding the announcement when the curtain went up, so Fonda stepped to the footlights and told the audience, which then also gave the new baby a round of applause.
Later, when Mister Roberts went on the road, with Mrs. Lane playing a nurse, Sara went along too. “We had two cribs,” recalls Mr. Lane. “One was shipped with the props and set up backstage. The other was collapsible and could be carried in a suitcase to our hotel. My wife and I had two dressing rooms wherever we played, but we just used one for ourselves. The other was the nursery. The baby would nap during the performance and then stay up late with us afterward. Once, after a blizzard in Montreal, there were no cabs available, so we ‘mushed’ her to the theater in the collapsible crib.”
Sara trouped with her parents again when the Lanes were in the road company The Desperate Hours. By this time she had a little brother, and they would sneak into box seats and shout, “Bravo!” when their parents took their bows.
By this time, too, she had begun and ended the first phase of her theatrical career, and here Sara Lane is one up on the actresses who pose for pictures in Playboy. She posed nude for a soap commercial when she was 9 months old! Her father says, “She was a beautiful child and much in demand. She did three commercials before she was a year old.”
The Lane family settled in California 10 years ago. At first they lived in suburban Brentwood, but Sara’s increasing interest in horses brought about the move to the ranch at Malibu.
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Her talents as an actress gave her the opportunity to pursue her horse hobby. With the money she made doing commercials, she bought her “first real good mare.” In 1964 she entered a “Miss Teen-Age” contest, which brought her to the attention of motion-picture producer William Castle, who cast her in I Saw What You Did, starring Joan Crawford. She played a “little, fat, blond teenager” – her description. The money she made in the movie went to have her mare bred by “a proven sire.” Now, she says, “I have my own filly.”
Sara blames her interest in horses for one habit which detracts somewhat from her country-girl image – smoking cigarets. She says. “I build my own corrals and muck out my own stables. I picked up smoking from the wranglers. It’s just lucky I don’t chew tobacco.”
Unlike most young actresses, she did not participate in high school dramatics when she attended Santa Monica High. She says, “After making the movie in my first year, I was afraid that more would be expected of me than I could deliver. I was just shy, I guess.”
It was this lack of pretension, plus her wholesome appearance, which was responsible for Sara’s getting the role of Elizabeth Grainger in The Virginian. Frank Price, the program’s executive producer at the time, says, “I didn’t want to wind up with another Hollywood blonde. We considered 80 to 100 girls. I was looking for a straightforward, girl-next-door quality, and that’s what I found in Sara.”
After a year as co-star of a major television series, Sara Lane still retains that quality. Even as an actress, she is unactressy. She says, “When I’m on a soundstage, I get flippy. I like being on a real dirty location.”
Although the Lane family is heavily show-biz oriented, their interests are varied and far-ranging. Sara’s father was head of the drama department at the University of Wisconsin for many years before he became an actor; her mother was an “exceptionally talented student.” Mr. Lane says, “We have always stopped dinner to look up the answer to a question that has come up in the discussion.” Sara goes to concerts and art exhibits rather than to movies and discotheques; and in addition to horses, she says, “I lovepolitics.”
As for acting, she says, “I don’t want to do it if I can’t be good – I don’t want to be a starlet.”
