Remember the wildly popular TV series "Peyton Place"?
Peyton Place shocked America with its tale of secrets, sex and hypocrisy in a small New Hampshire town.
The TV show was based on the novel "Peyton Place" written in the 50s. The film helped paved the way for the abandoning of the Hollywood moral codes. It launched the careers of actors, Mia Farrow, Barbara Parkins and Ryan O'Neal. It outraged the citizens of Gilmanton, New Hampshire —"the real Peyton Place."
Author Grace Metalious
The author of the book "Peyton Place" (on which the TV show is based) was an unusual person, perhaps eccentric for her time, and perhaps a feminist.
Grace married her high school sweetheart, George Metalious, but she had dreamed of a different life for herself, a life of romance and adventure. She kept writing, even after giving birth to her third child.
Writing was her lifeline. Grace often locked her children out of the apartment so she could write. In the end, she'd written a book. Grace discovered literary agent by browsing through a library directory. It was published and was a wild hit.
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Peyton Place indicted 1950s morality, and recast the concept of the soap opera. In its first month, the book sold more than 100,000 copies, at a time when the average first novel sold 3,000, total. (Michael Callahan, 3/06 Vanity Fair)
Overnight, Grace Metalious became wealthy.
Yet, with her ponytail, baggy flannel shirts, and jeans, Grace broke every mold of the prim New England country wife:
She was outspoken, a terrible housekeeper
(once, when some P.R. guys from New York came to visit, she grabbed what looked like a Brillo pad, only to discover it was a dead mouse). She was also and shockingly well read. "She was a totally unbridled, free, glorious spirit. (Vanity Fair, 3/06)
Grace swore, a lot, and she drank, a lot, and she had lots of guys around her. She got married and divorced and had affairs. And she talked about sex and she talked about real life and she didn't filter it. She quickly became a lightning rod for gossip. The local wags said Grace had gone to the grocery store in a mink coat while naked underneath; she had greeted the milkman in the buff and her house was dirty.
The film adaptation of Peyton Place, was released in 1957, and received 9 Oscar nominations.
Unfortunately, the author's life took a downturn in the subsequent years. Drowning in booze and running out of cash, Grace agreed to write a sequel, Return to Peyton Place. She handed in 98 largely unintelligible pages that were re-written and fleshed out by a ghostwriter. The ensuing reviews, each more savage than the last, sent her spiraling further downward. Grace died at the age of 39, perhaps from alcoholism.
Peyton Place, as Viewed Today
Today, the book "Peyton Place" appears on women's-studies curricula at universities. The book spoke about things that were not discussed in polite society, and allowed people to talk about all sorts of issues.
Screenwriter Foner Gyllenhaal sees Grace less as feminist icon than as unwitting trailblazer, and has framed the script for the upcoming film version of her life in those terms.
"I don't think she went out there to be a feminist," Foner Gyllenhaal says.
"I think she went out there to be a human being who wanted to live in a world where people weren't hypocritical and told the truth and stood by their actions. And in that regard I think she was innocent as well as brave."
(Vanity Fair, Michael Callahan, 3/06)
Note: Sandra Bullock is slated to star in the film "Grace" about the life of Grace Metalious, which is in-production.
CNBC will premiere a 2 hour documentary, "TOM BROKAW REPORTS: BOOMER$!" on Thursday, March 4th at 9pm. 
Ok, we've been really serious here on vaboomer for a looooooooooooong time. It's that winter doldrums thing. Do you remember Howdy Doody? Were you a fan? I tried. I wanted to be. I pretended to be. I was not.
