Sandra Peabody

Sandra Lee Peabody was born on January 11, 1948.[1] The daughter of M. O. Peabody, she grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.[2][3] Peabody's career began in the Miami region, both on stage and in film.[1] While attending Stranahan High School, Peabody was a cheerleader and an aspiring actress.[4][5] Peabody made her professional acting debut as a teen actress in the feature length educational film Misfit (1965), during her junior year.[6] Eighty actresses auditioned for the role of a teenage drug addict. While Peabody was not the original choice for the part, she got cast after the original actress quit the production after becoming sick before filming.[1]

During her senior year, Peabody was cast in the play Enter Laughing (1966) as Wanda, the girlfriend of the main character.[7] The play opened in January 1966 at the Hollywood Little Theatre to favorable reviews, with her cemetery scene highlighted.[7] Peabody subsequently portrayed Beauty in a play adaptation of Beauty and the Beast and Katie Brown in the play Calamity Jane (both in 1966).[8][9] Peabody's next role was in Luke Moberly's mystery film The Horse Killer (1966), in which she portrayed another "girlfriend" type character.[10] In a retrospective interview, Peabody described the film as having an unusual story and her scenes involving a lot of horseback riding.[1]

After graduating high school in 1966, Peabody got accepted into Carnegie Mellon University to study drama.[2] The following year, she was selected to do summer stock at the Priscilla Beach Theater in Plymouth, Massachusetts as an actress-in-training.[2] She later studied the Meisner technique with acting teacher Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre.[11] In 1969, she had a role as Gwendolyn Pigeon in Neil Simon's The Odd Couple.[12] Mariruth Campbell of The Journal News described her as being a "competent" actress.[12]

Peabody was a part of the stage plays Celebration, Little Mary Sunshine, and Stop the World – I Want to Get Off (all in 1969).[13][14][15] In 1970, Peabody had a supporting role in Robert Kalfin's Off-Broadway musical production Tarot which ran at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.[16] Additionally, she appeared sporadically on the television soap operas All My Children, As the World Turns, The Edge of Night, and One Life to Live (all in the early 1970s), along with various commercial appearances.[1]

Her feature film career in New York City would mark a stark contrast to her ingenuous roles in Misfit and The Horse Killer. In 1970, one of the first roles she signed onto was for the critically panned sexploitation satire film The Filthiest Show in Town (1970), a parody of dating game shows.[1][17] She appeared in the commercial segments. After this role, she went on a cross-country trip across the West Coast.[18] Upon returning home, she responded to a casting notice in the trade publication Backstage for a film under the working title Night of Vengeance.[18] She was originally asked to audition for the supporting role of Phyllis Stone. After meeting with producer Sean S. Cunningham, she got the role of the seventeen-year-old protagonist Mari Collingwood.[18] The film was originally planned to be a hardcore pornographic horror film but, the filmmakers promised her it would just focus on the horror elements. It would ultimately be released as The Last House on the Left,[19] a loose remake of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (1960).[20] Director Wes Craven thought highly of Peabody, describing her as "pretty" and "plucky," but acknowledged she lacked the confidence required for the gritty shoot.[21]

Peabody revealed that she had to film the lake scene for Last House numerous times.[22]

The Last House on the Left was a difficult production for Peabody. The film did not have a complete script at the time of filming, and Peabody was in a vulnerable mental state due to the lack of preparation for her scenes. She has expressed contempt towards her overall performance.[23] Peabody spent a lot of time on the set with Craven, who often encouraged her throughout filming her scenes.[23] She endured an excessive amount of abuse from the lead actors David A. Hess and Marc Sheffler throughout the shoot.[23][24]

Sheffler, who portrayed Junior, revealed in an interview that he grabbed Peabody, held her over a cliff, and threatened to throw her off if she didn't reach the level of desperation needed for the scene, stating "She wasn’t getting the scene. She wasn’t at the anxiety level that she needed to be. So, we’d done it I don’t know how many times … everybody was getting annoyed. So, I said to Wes, 'Give me a minute with her.' What I did was... you can’t see it in the shot but I took her over to the cliff, and I put her over the cliff and just grabbed her and said, ‘If you don’t get this fucking scene right now, I’m going to drop you and Wes will shoot it, and we’ll get a different scene, but it’ll work because you’ll be fucking mangled.”[24]

Additionally, method actor Hess singled her out from the rest of the cast and treated her differently than female co-stars Lucy Grantham and Jeramie Rain. Peabody stated that he would chase after her with a knife at night and that she genuinely thought he was a serial killer at some point in his life.[23] Hess revealed that he started roughly grabbing her breasts and threatened to rape her during the filming of her assault scene.[21][25] During this particular shot, assistant director Yvonne Hannemann described it as an upsetting shoot with her in tears and walking off the set.[21] Peabody would ultimately detest the film. During a cast screening, Peabody brought her mother to watch the film with her. Unhappy with the rough cut that she watched, Peabody ultimately walked out.[26] Upon release, the film was a critical and commercial success, earning more than $3 million at the American box office.[27] She attests that while she was horrified while filming it, viewing it in modern times, it is likely considered a "funny film."[28]

Chuck Vincent cast her as Anna Reed in the horror film Voices of Desire (1972).[29] Peabody's next role was Gwen in the horror film Massage Parlor Murders! (1973).[30] Subsequently, she portrayed a cult member in the horror film Legacy of Satan (1973).[31] Peabody returned to the stage as Minnie Oakley in Jay Harnick's musical comedy Annie Get Your Gun (1973), alongside Barbara Eden and John Bennett Perry.[11] Jonathan Takiff of Philadelphia Daily News stated, "Clinched up in a shapeless bag of a dress, carrying on in a raggle-taggle performing style, Sandra Peabody is totally believable as an adolescent hick from the sticks."[11] The following year, she had a lead role in Gerri Seddley's sexploitation comedy film Teenage Hitchhikers as a teenage runaway. In a review for Los Angeles Times, Linda Gross stated that Peabody's performance was "ingenious."[32]

Her last acting credit is the stage production Tunnel of Love (1977).[33] After retiring from acting, Peabody taught theater techniques to children at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts until 1982.[34] Subsequently, Peabody moved from New York City to Portland, Oregon to launch a career as a television producer and writer for local cable programming aimed at children.[1] Peabody wrote and directed the 26-episode KATU variety show Get Movin' (1982), which earned her a CableACE Award in 1983.[34] She later served as producer for the KATU syndicated Emmy-award-winning children's television series Popcorn (1984–92), another variety show.[35][36]

In 1988, Peabody developed A Time to Care (1988), a television documentary series that focused on local nursing homes and the positive effects that community volunteerism had on the residents.[37] She stated that it's "a neat idea for a series because what they're basically saying is that more than ever people are reaching out to help others."[37] The broadcasting division Group W picked up the series for distribution and syndication.[37] In 1994, Peabody served as the casting director for the children's musical home video Wee Sing: Under the Sea.[38] Peabody wrote and produced the educational public television series Zone In (2001) revolving around "tough issues for kids."[1] Since the 1980s, Peabody has worked as an acting coach and agent in areas around Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles.[1] She has mentored a variety of actors including Alicia Lagano.[39]