Peyton Place

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Peyton Place

Few imaginary cities are as well known as Peyton Place, and perhaps only Metropolis and Gotham City can rival it for success in a variety of media. The fictitious New England village has been the setting of two novels, two motion pictures, one prime time television series, one daytime drama, and two made-for-television movies—all this from a book written by a New Hampshire homemaker with little formal education.

Grace Metalious published Peyton Place in 1956. It was the first novel for Metalious, who was thirty-two at the time, a homemaker with three children and a high school education. Metalious had lived in New Hampshire her entire life, and it is widely assumed that she based her novel on her experiences growing up. Peyton Place is set in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The primary character is Allison MacKenzie, a teenager whose mother, Constance, owns a dress store. Constance claims to be widowed but eventually it is revealed that she never married Allison's father. Other major characters in the novel are Betty Anderson, Allison's beautiful and flirtatious classmate; Rodney Harrington, a spoiled rich youth; Selena Cross, Allison's best friend, who comes from an impoverished family; and the new school principal, Michael Rossi. The novel interweaves many stories as it reveals the dirty secrets of many of the townspeople, particularly Allison's illegitimacy and Selena's rape by her stepfather, whom she murders.

Authors had explored the seamy side of small town America before, particularly John O'Hara in his Gibbsville stories and Henry Bellamann in King's Row, but the fact that Metalious was a woman and a New Englander made Peyton Place more shocking. Critics were not kind to the novel—the New Yorker complained that its characters lead "humorless, ungenerous lives" and the New York HeraldTribune commented that "the book reads like a tabloid version of life in a small town." Nevertheless, Peyton Place was an enormously popular success, the third best-selling novel in 1956 and the second in 1957. By 1965 it had become the best-selling novel in U.S. history, although it was eventually surpassed by The Godfather, The Exorcist, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Metalious was sued in 1958 by her hometown's high school principal, who claimed she had based one of the novel's character on him; the case was settled out of court. She wrote a sequel, Return to Peyton Place, and several other less notable books, but died due to complications from alcoholism in 1964.

Hollywood immediately recognized the potential of Metalious's novel. The six-figure sum she received for the film rights to her book was the highest paid at the time for a first novel. Peyton Place the motion picture was released in 1957. Lana Turner starred as Constance MacKenzie, and her casting against type generated a great deal of publicity for the movie, which was the highest grossing film of that year. The film received nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Turner received a Best Actress nomination, and Diane Varsi and Hope Lange, who played Allison MacKenzie and Selena Cross, respectively, each received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The sequel, Return to Peyton Place, was released in 1961.

Peyton Place reappeared in 1964 as a television series on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). As it was one of the first prime time soap operas, new episodes of Peyton Place were broadcast twice a week, and three times a week from 1965 to 1967, when the series was at the height of its popularity. The television version of Peyton Place is best remembered for making stars of Mia Farrow, who portrayed Allison MacKenzie, and Ryan O'Neal, who portrayed Rodney Harrington. The series was canceled in 1969, but it paved the way for subsequent prime time soaps such as Dallas and Knot's Landing. A daytime drama, Return to Peyton Place, ran on the National Broadcasting Network (NBC) from 1972 to 1974. In 1977 the television movie Murder in Peyton Place reunited most of the television series cast except Farrow and O'Neal, whose successful film careers kept them from making television appearances. The movie explained the absence of Allison and Rodney by explaining they had been killed, hence the film's title. Another television movie, Peyton Place: The Next Generation, also brought back many of the television show's cast members and introduced new characters as well in the hopes of inspiring a television series, but such a program never materialized.

Peyton Place has become a permanent part of American culture. The name itself has become synonymous with deceit and vice. When Jeanine C. Reilly sang in "Harper Valley P.T.A." "Well, this is just a little Peyton Place and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites" all America knew exactly what she meant. And when the Warner Brothers network launched its prime time soap Savannah, it seemed almost inevitable that its sluttiest character be named Peyton.

—Randall Clark