Allison MacKenzie
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.
| Allison MacKenzie | |||||
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| Peyton Place character | |||||
| Portrayed by | Mia Farrow | ||||
| First appearance | September 15, 1964 (#1) | ||||
| Last appearance | August 29, 1966 (#263) | ||||
| Profile | |||||
| Residence | Unknown | ||||
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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.
Book and film version
In the original novel, Allison was the illegitimate daughter of Constance MacKenzie,[1] 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 grandmother, Elizabeth Standish, deliberately changed the year of birth on her birth certificate to make Allison seem a year younger than she really was.[2] 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. Allison's mother and a gossipy neighbor, Evelyn Page, the mother of Allison's friend, Norman Page, thought that their children had had sex. This was untrue; Allison and Norman had merely gone on an innocent picnic. However, Constance and Evelyn forced their children to confess to something they didn't do, and both were punished for it.[2] (In the movie, Marion Partridge had mistakenly thought she saw Allison and Norman swimming in the nude. The couple she actually saw was Rodney Harrington and Betty Anderson, but it was Marion who spread the gossip about Allison and Norman.)
After Allison heatedly told her mother that she had never been so humiliated, Constance slapped her and screamed at the top of her lungs, calling her a bastard. When Allison discovered the truth about her birth, she was devastated.
Later, her best friend Selena Cross's mother, Nellie, committed suicide in her bedroom closet, after discovering that her husband had impregnated Selena, who was his stepdaughter.[3] Allison discovered Nellie's dead body and screamed in terror. Her high school principal, Tomas Makris (later renamed Michael Rossi), who had been dating Constance, helped Allison through this dark time. Allison also received assistance from Dr. Matthew Swain, the town's leading physician.
The combination of Allison discovering the truth about her birth and Mrs. Cross's suicide led to Allison being hospitalized. Constance initially disapproved of Allison's friendship with Selena. However, Constance eventually saw some good in Selena and offered her a job at her store. Allison is was also friends with Kathy Ellsworth, the daughter of a mill worker and a nurse.
Eventually, the rift between mother and daughter became so bad that Allison left Peyton Place and moved to New York City.[4] She became a writer for a magazine and was fairly successful. While in New York, Allison roomed with budding actress Stephanie Wallace. Later, Allison returned to her hometown after Selena went on trial for Lucas's murder. Selena was acquitted, but she was still tormented by vicious gossip in Peyton Place.
Return to 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 the book shocked and angered most of the community. Two people were especially upset: Marion Partridge, the wife of the town's leading attorney, and Roberta Carter. Roberta's son, Ted, was married to an evil-minded woman named Jennifer Burbank, whom he met while in law school. Jennifer was a Boston Blueblood.
Because of Allison's book, Marion and Roberta fired Allison's stepfather, high school principal Tomas Makris. However, Roberta later reversed her decision rehired Makris, ending her friendship with Marion Partridge. Roberta was later murdered by her daughter in-law.
Like her mother, Allison had an affair with a married man, her publisher, Lewis Jackman. Lewis died in a car accident, which shattered Allison. After his death, Allison and Constance bonded, as both had lost a lover.
Constance told her daughter that although Allison didn't have a child to live for, she should continue to live and return to work. Constance's support helped Allison to get back to her work and eventually heal.
In one of the television movie reunions of Peyton Place, it was revealed that Allison had a daughter named Megan, who returned with her to Peyton Place after Allison was raped. Megan later fell in love with a man named Dana Harrington. At first, the townspeople believed that Dana was the son of Allison's former lover, Rodney. Later, however, one of Allison's former rivals, Betty Anderson, discovered that Dana's father was a man named Steven Cord. Betty had once been married to Cord.
Soap version
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 turned out to be Elliot Carson,[5] a man wrongly convicted of murder. 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 had planned to run away from 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 Allison 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 had 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 ends abruptly when Marion Fowler strikes Allison with her automobile. Allison is sent into a coma for several weeks.[5] When she came out of the coma, she suffered from amnesia and couldn't remember the entire past year. Therefore, she didn't recognize Elliot as her father. The emotional package eventually became too 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.
References
- Wood, Ruth Pirsig (1995). Lolita in Peyton Place: Highbrow, Middlebrow, and Lowbrow Novels of the 1950s. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. pp. 3–4. ISBN 0815320612.
- Anderson, Stacey Stanfield (2006). "Toxic Togetherness in a Postwar 'Potboiler': Grace Metalious's Peyton Place". Americana. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
- Creadick, Anna G. (2010). Perfectly Average: The Pursuit of Normality in Postwar America. University of Massachusetts Press. p. 132. ISBN 9781558498051.
- Hirsh-Dickinson, Sally (2011). Dirty Whites and Dark Secrets: Sex and Race in Peyton Place. University of New Hampshire Press. p. 4. ISBN 9781611680416.
- "Peyton Place". Fifties Web. Retrieved 3 October 2015.