Betty Buckley starred in the 1976 adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’.Photo:Snap/Shutterstock; Penguin Random House
Snap/Shutterstock; Penguin Random House
Happy Birthday,Carrie!
When the novel was adapted into the classic, Oscar-nominated horror movie two years later in 1976 withSissy Spacekin the lead role, several elements of the story changed, including Carrie’s physical appearance, the manner of her mother’s death and the fate of the gym teacher who shows compassion toward the titular character.
In the book, the gym teacher was named Rita Desjardin, but called Miss Collins in the movie. FutureBroadwayandEight Is EnoughstarBetty Buckleyplayed Miss Collins on screen. She also petitioned directorBrian De Palmato let her character live!
Sissy Spacek in ‘Carrie’.Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty
Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty
“I kept saying to him, ‘She shouldn’t die. She didn’t die in the book,’” Buckley, 76, tells PEOPLE. “And I’m like, ‘Seriously, Brian, don’t kill Miss Collins off. Let her go to the end.’”
Furious and embarrassed, Carrie locks the doors of the school, trapping everyone inside while an electrical fire breaks out.
Betty Buckley in ‘Carrie’.Alamy
Alamy
The coordinator was doing another scene in which he was thrown in the air as one of Carrie’s classmates who gets killed. “There was a mattress for him to land on, and they miscalculated the distance and he hit the ground and hurt himself badly,” recalls Buckley.
“So we all witnessed that and we’re like, ‘What? Are we in safe hands?” adds Buckley, who became nervous that she’d be injured, too.
Buckley’s character is pinned against a wall when the basketball backboard falls. The pendulum-like apparatus was on ropes, and Buckley says there was a piece of balsa wood that was supposed to prevent any injury to her: “That was the safety mechanism.”
“Oh, this’ll work,” Buckley says she was told, but she was not entirely sure: “The terror you see from Miss Collins when that happened was absolutely real.”
Despite that, Buckley, who starred alongside Spacek, Allen,John Travolta, Amy Irving and William Katt in the film, loved makingCarrie.
“We all had so much fun, and there were seven of us making our film debut, including John Travolta,” she says. “And the group of us were just so excited to be doing it. Sissy Spacek had done some films, and so she was a veteran, all chill and everything. And the rest of us were like, ‘Oh, Hollywood, we’re so excited to be here!’”
Carrieis available to stream on Max.
source: people.com
