Allison MacKenzie
Encyclopedia
Allison MacKenzie is a fictional character
and one of the protagonists in the novel Peyton Place
, its sequel Return to Peyton Place
, the subsequent film adaptations of both, and the primetime television series and daytime soap opera
they inspired.
In the film Peyton Place
, she was portrayed by Diane Varsi
; in the movie sequel, Return to Peyton Place
, she was played by actress Carol Lynley
; in the 1960s television serial Peyton Place
, she was played by Mia Farrow
; and in the 1974 daytime serial Return to Peyton Place, she was played by actresses Katherine Glass
and Pamela Susan Shoop.
In the TV series she appeared from the first episode to the 263rd episode, between 1964 and 1966.
, the owner of a clothing store in Peyton Place, a small community in New Hampshire, and an imported fabric store owner also named Allison MacKenzie (in the movie, her father was named Angus, and in the television series, he was a New York City
businessman named James).
Three years after she was born, her father died. Constance and her mother, Elizabeth Standish, deliberately changed the year of birth on her birth certificate to make Allison seem a year younger than she really was. This led to quite a lot of friction between mother and daughter. Allison was sensitive and dreaming, unlike her practical and often distant mother. The friction between the two would escalate as Allison grew up.
Her life's dream was to be a writer, something Constance had never understood. She also wanted her daughter to remain chaste, which caused Allison to rebel. When she was almost sixteen years old, her mother and a gossipy neighbor, Evelyn Page, who was the mother of Allison's friend, Norman Page, thought that the two had sex. In truth, they hadn't, they had gone on an innocent picnic; but Constance and Evelyn forced them to wrongly confess to something they didn't even do; and both were punished for it.
After Allison heatedly told her mother that she had never been so humilliated in all her life, Constance slapped her viciously and screamed at the top of her lungs that she was a bastard. When she discovered the truth about her birth, Allison was devastated.
Later on, her best friend, Selena Cross
's mother, Nellie, had committed suicide in her bedroom closet, due to discovering that Selena had been impregnated by her despicable stepfather, Lucas. It was Allison who had discovered Nellie's dead body and screamed in terror. It took her high school principal, Tomas Makris, who had been dating Constance, to help Allison through this dark time in her life; along with Dr. Matthew Swain, the town's leading physician.
The double blow of Allison's discovering the truth about her birth as well as Nellie's suicide caused her to be hospitalized. Allison's friendship with Selena was another sore point with Constance, but she eventually saw something good in her, and offered her a job at her store. Besides Selena, she had a friendship with Kathy Ellsworth, the daughter of a mill worker and a nurse.
Eventually, the rift between mother and daughter had grown so badly, that Allison left Peyton Place, and moved to New York City. She became a writer for a magazine, and became rather successful. While in New York, she roomed with budding actress Stephanie Wallace. Allison returned to her hometown after Selena went on trial for Lucas's murder. She ended up being acquitted, but was tormented by the vicious gossip of Peyton Place.
In the sequel, Return to Peyton Place, Allison wrote a book called Samuel's Castle based on her home town. The reaction to this shocked most of the community; and angered them as well, but two people in particular; Spiteful Marion Partridge
, the wife of the town's leading attorney who had hated Constance and Allison anyway, because they had deviated from a norm she had set up; and Roberta Carter. In Roberta's case, however, the hatred was hypocrisy, since her son, Ted, was married to a nasty and evil-minded woman named Jennifer Burbank, whom he met whilst in law school. Jennifer was a Boston Blueblood who married Ted and proceeded to make him weak.
Because of Allison's book, Marion and Roberta fired Allison's stepfather, high school principal Tomas Makris. However, Roberta later reversed her decision and had Makris rehired (ending her friendship with Marion Partridge in the process), before she was murdered by her scheming daughter in-law.
Like her mother, Allison had an affair with a married man, her publisher, Lewis Jackman; only, unlike her mother, Lewis died in a car accident. This totally shattered Allison, and yet, in a way, also bonded her and her mother like never before, since both had been through the same situation.
Constance gently reminded Allison that although she didn't have a child to live for, as she had with Allison, nevertheless that she continue to live for him, and living for him meant, in Allison's case, her work. These words helped Allison get back into her work, and she healed eventually.
In one of the television movie
reunions of Peyton Place, it was discovered that Allison had a daughter named Megan, who had returned with her to Peyton Place, after Allison had been raped. Megan, like her mother before her, had fallen in love with a young man named Dana Harrington. At first, it was thought that he was the son of Allison's former lover, Rodney, but it was later discovered by Betty Anderson
, Allison's former rival, that his father was a man named Steven Cord, whom she had also been married to. This opened the road to Megan and Dana being together.
In the television series, Allison is the daughter of Constance. Her father is believed to be an unknown man in a photo. Her real father ended up to be Elliot Carson, a wrongly convicted man. Constance doesn't want her daughter to know who her real father is. Allison reads a lot and doesn't have a lot of friends of her own age. She is good friends with Matthew Swain
, an older man who works at the newspaper and she prefers to call uncle Matt.
She falls in love with the popular Rodney Harrington
. They date for a short period, before Rodney knocks up Betty Anderson
and marries her. He later admits he planned to runaway town with her if Betty hadn't gotten pregnant. After Rodney and Betty are divorced, he and Allison begin dating again, but Rodney's arrest for murder and Allison's coma (see below) tend to get in the way.
When Elliot is released from jail he returns to Peyton Place. Constance is afraid the truth will come up and tries to keep her away from him. However, she and Elliot become good friends after they find out they share the same interests. In this period, Allison also became good friends with her teacher Paul Hanley
, the man who testified against Elliot in court.
She ends up finding out who Elliot really is and her good relationship with her mother was strained from that point forward. Even when Constance and Elliot get married, she does not approve. Meanwhile, she becomes the babysitter of Kim Schuster
, a deaf 6-year old. Kim's father David Schuster constantly flirts with her.
Her bond with Kim ended abruptly when Marion Fowler involves her in a car accident. Allison is sent into a coma for several weeks. When she came out of it, she suffered from amnesia
and couldn't remembered the entire past year. Therefore she didn't recognize Elliot as her father. The emotional package eventually became to much for her and she suffered a nervous breakdown. She ended up cutting her hair.
As noted above, in this period, she again had a relationship with Rodney. However, he couldn't handle her anymore and broke it off. She later became close to the blind Chris Webber. Chris was believed to be blinded by Ann Howard, but he confessed it was actually his brother Lee Webber who was responsible. Allison was nearly capable of handling all the emotional baggage
until Ann died, when she decided to leave town.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
and one of the protagonists in the novel Peyton Place
Peyton Place (novel)
Peyton Place is a 1956 novel by Grace Metalious. It sold 60,000 copies within the first ten days of its release and remained on the New York Times best seller list for 59 weeks. It was adapted as both a 1957 film and a 1964–69 television series....
, its sequel Return to Peyton Place
Return to Peyton Place
Return to Peyton Place is a 1959 novel by Grace Metalious, a sequel to her best-selling 1956 novel Peyton Place.-Plot summary:After the phenomenal success of her first novel, Metalious hastily penned a sequel centering on the life and loves of bestselling author Allison MacKenzie, who ironically...
, the subsequent film adaptations of both, and the primetime television series and daytime soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
they inspired.
In the film Peyton Place
Peyton Place (film)
Peyton Place is a 1957 American drama film directed by Mark Robson. The screenplay by John Michael Hayes is based on the bestselling 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious.-Plot:...
, she was portrayed by Diane Varsi
Diane Varsi
Diane Marie Antonia Varsi was an American film actress best known for her performances in Peyton Place – her film debut, and for which she was nominated for an Academy Award – and the cult film Wild in the Streets...
; in the movie sequel, Return to Peyton Place
Return to Peyton Place
Return to Peyton Place is a 1959 novel by Grace Metalious, a sequel to her best-selling 1956 novel Peyton Place.-Plot summary:After the phenomenal success of her first novel, Metalious hastily penned a sequel centering on the life and loves of bestselling author Allison MacKenzie, who ironically...
, she was played by actress Carol Lynley
Carol Lynley
Carol Lynley is an American actress and former child model.-Life and career:Lynley was born Carole Ann Jones in New York City, the daughter of Frances , a waitress, and Cyril Jones. Her father was Irish and her mother, a native of New England, was of English, Scottish, Welsh, German, and Native...
; in the 1960s television serial Peyton Place
Peyton Place (TV series)
Peyton Place is an American prime-time soap opera which aired on ABC in half-hour episodes from September 15, 1964 to June 2, 1969.Based upon the 1956 novel of the same name by Grace Metalious, the series was preceded by a 1957 film adaptation. A total of 514 episodes were broadcast, in...
, she was played by Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
; and in the 1974 daytime serial Return to Peyton Place, she was played by actresses Katherine Glass
Katherine Glass
Katherine Glass is an American actress best remembered for her television work in the 1970s.-Career:Glass was raised as a Roman Catholic in New Haven, Connecticut. Before appearing on television, Glass played in several stock company productions, including Red, White and Maddox and as Trina in...
and Pamela Susan Shoop.
In the TV series she appeared from the first episode to the 263rd episode, between 1964 and 1966.
Book and film version
In the original novel, Allison was the illegitimate daughter of Constance MacKenzieConstance MacKenzie
Constance MacKenzie is a fictional character in the 1956 novel Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. In the subsequent film adaptation, she was played by Lana Turner; in the sequel Return to Peyton Place, by Eleanor Parker; in the primetime television series, by Dorothy Malone ; and in daytime soap...
, the owner of a clothing store in Peyton Place, a small community in New Hampshire, and an imported fabric store owner also named Allison MacKenzie (in the movie, her father was named Angus, and in the television series, he was a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
businessman named James).
Three years after she was born, her father died. Constance and her mother, Elizabeth Standish, deliberately changed the year of birth on her birth certificate to make Allison seem a year younger than she really was. This led to quite a lot of friction between mother and daughter. Allison was sensitive and dreaming, unlike her practical and often distant mother. The friction between the two would escalate as Allison grew up.
Her life's dream was to be a writer, something Constance had never understood. She also wanted her daughter to remain chaste, which caused Allison to rebel. When she was almost sixteen years old, her mother and a gossipy neighbor, Evelyn Page, who was the mother of Allison's friend, Norman Page, thought that the two had sex. In truth, they hadn't, they had gone on an innocent picnic; but Constance and Evelyn forced them to wrongly confess to something they didn't even do; and both were punished for it.
After Allison heatedly told her mother that she had never been so humilliated in all her life, Constance slapped her viciously and screamed at the top of her lungs that she was a bastard. When she discovered the truth about her birth, Allison was devastated.
Later on, her best friend, Selena Cross
Selena Cross
Selena Cross is a fictional character in the novel Peyton Place, as well as its sequel, Return to Peyton Place and the films based on the novels.-In the novel:...
's mother, Nellie, had committed suicide in her bedroom closet, due to discovering that Selena had been impregnated by her despicable stepfather, Lucas. It was Allison who had discovered Nellie's dead body and screamed in terror. It took her high school principal, Tomas Makris, who had been dating Constance, to help Allison through this dark time in her life; along with Dr. Matthew Swain, the town's leading physician.
The double blow of Allison's discovering the truth about her birth as well as Nellie's suicide caused her to be hospitalized. Allison's friendship with Selena was another sore point with Constance, but she eventually saw something good in her, and offered her a job at her store. Besides Selena, she had a friendship with Kathy Ellsworth, the daughter of a mill worker and a nurse.
Eventually, the rift between mother and daughter had grown so badly, that Allison left Peyton Place, and moved to New York City. She became a writer for a magazine, and became rather successful. While in New York, she roomed with budding actress Stephanie Wallace. Allison returned to her hometown after Selena went on trial for Lucas's murder. She ended up being acquitted, but was tormented by the vicious gossip of Peyton Place.
In the sequel, Return to Peyton Place, Allison wrote a book called Samuel's Castle based on her home town. The reaction to this shocked most of the community; and angered them as well, but two people in particular; Spiteful Marion Partridge
Marion Partridge
Marion Partridge was a character in the novel Peyton Place and in the subsequent film. In the film, Marion was played by actress Peg Hillias....
, the wife of the town's leading attorney who had hated Constance and Allison anyway, because they had deviated from a norm she had set up; and Roberta Carter. In Roberta's case, however, the hatred was hypocrisy, since her son, Ted, was married to a nasty and evil-minded woman named Jennifer Burbank, whom he met whilst in law school. Jennifer was a Boston Blueblood who married Ted and proceeded to make him weak.
Because of Allison's book, Marion and Roberta fired Allison's stepfather, high school principal Tomas Makris. However, Roberta later reversed her decision and had Makris rehired (ending her friendship with Marion Partridge in the process), before she was murdered by her scheming daughter in-law.
Like her mother, Allison had an affair with a married man, her publisher, Lewis Jackman; only, unlike her mother, Lewis died in a car accident. This totally shattered Allison, and yet, in a way, also bonded her and her mother like never before, since both had been through the same situation.
Constance gently reminded Allison that although she didn't have a child to live for, as she had with Allison, nevertheless that she continue to live for him, and living for him meant, in Allison's case, her work. These words helped Allison get back into her work, and she healed eventually.
In one of the television movie
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
reunions of Peyton Place, it was discovered that Allison had a daughter named Megan, who had returned with her to Peyton Place, after Allison had been raped. Megan, like her mother before her, had fallen in love with a young man named Dana Harrington. At first, it was thought that he was the son of Allison's former lover, Rodney, but it was later discovered by Betty Anderson
Betty Anderson
Betty Anderson is a fictional character in the novel Peyton Place, written by Grace Metalious, as well as the subsequent films and TV series based on the novel. In the film, she was played by actress Terry Moore; and in the TV series, she was portrayed by actress Barbara Parkins; in the short-lived...
, Allison's former rival, that his father was a man named Steven Cord, whom she had also been married to. This opened the road to Megan and Dana being together.
Soap version
Matthew Swain
Matthew Swain, M.D. is a fictional character in the novel Peyton Place, as well as the movie and TV series of the same name. In the movie, he was played by actor Lloyd Nolan and in the television series, he was played by actor Warner Anderson.-History:...
, an older man who works at the newspaper and she prefers to call uncle Matt.
She falls in love with the popular Rodney Harrington
Rodney Harrington
Rod Harrington is a fictional character on the television drama Peyton Place. He was portrayed by Ryan O'Neal. He was also a character on the 1957 film adaptation of the original novel. In this version, he was portrayed by Barry Coe.-Film version:...
. They date for a short period, before Rodney knocks up Betty Anderson
Betty Anderson
Betty Anderson is a fictional character in the novel Peyton Place, written by Grace Metalious, as well as the subsequent films and TV series based on the novel. In the film, she was played by actress Terry Moore; and in the TV series, she was portrayed by actress Barbara Parkins; in the short-lived...
and marries her. He later admits he planned to runaway town with her if Betty hadn't gotten pregnant. After Rodney and Betty are divorced, he and Allison begin dating again, but Rodney's arrest for murder and Allison's coma (see below) tend to get in the way.
When Elliot is released from jail he returns to Peyton Place. Constance is afraid the truth will come up and tries to keep her away from him. However, she and Elliot become good friends after they find out they share the same interests. In this period, Allison also became good friends with her teacher Paul Hanley
Paul Hanley (tennis)
Paul Jason Hanley is a professional male tennis player from Australia, specialising in doubles. His parents, Jay and Judy, co-own a tennis centre, one of the main reasons Hanley pursued a career in the sport.He lost the 2005 Wimbledon finals in mixed doubles, playing with Tatiana Perebiynis...
, the man who testified against Elliot in court.
She ends up finding out who Elliot really is and her good relationship with her mother was strained from that point forward. Even when Constance and Elliot get married, she does not approve. Meanwhile, she becomes the babysitter of Kim Schuster
Kim Schuster
Kim Schuster is a fictional character on the television drama Peyton Place. She was portrayed in 33 episodes by Kimberly Beck, between 1965 and 1966.-Character history:...
, a deaf 6-year old. Kim's father David Schuster constantly flirts with her.
Her bond with Kim ended abruptly when Marion Fowler involves her in a car accident. Allison is sent into a coma for several weeks. When she came out of it, she suffered from amnesia
Amnesia
Amnesia is a condition in which one's memory is lost. The causes of amnesia have traditionally been divided into categories. Memory appears to be stored in several parts of the limbic system of the brain, and any condition that interferes with the function of this system can cause amnesia...
and couldn't remembered the entire past year. Therefore she didn't recognize Elliot as her father. The emotional package eventually became to much for her and she suffered a nervous breakdown. She ended up cutting her hair.
As noted above, in this period, she again had a relationship with Rodney. However, he couldn't handle her anymore and broke it off. She later became close to the blind Chris Webber. Chris was believed to be blinded by Ann Howard, but he confessed it was actually his brother Lee Webber who was responsible. Allison was nearly capable of handling all the emotional baggage
Emotional baggage
Emotional baggage can be defined as 'Painful memories, mistrust and hurt carried around from past sexual or emotional rejection'.It is an image of 'a big sack that you carry around with you at all times...[with] every disappointment, trauma, and wrong that you've ever experienced....This image, the...
until Ann died, when she decided to leave town.