Author: Bill Van Ryn

With four decades of experience as a working character actress, based first in New York and then Los Angeles, Linda Gillen has seen a lot and done a lot. Beginning in the mid 1960s, when she cut her acting teeth doing live theater at the Jersey Shore's Surflight Theater, Gillen has plied her trade steadily over the years. She's appeared in theatrical productions, motion pictures, and on television. Just a few of the performers she's shared scenes with are Burt Reynolds, Tom Hanks, Jon Lovitz, Telly Savalas, Beverly D'Angelo, Penny Marshall, Cindy Williams, Julie Newmar, Eve Arden, Susan Dey, Craig Wasson, and Joe Cortese. To those unfamiliar with her work, she has one of those faces that can seem familiar without being immediately identifiable, and she appeared in a number of high profile television commercials in the 1980s. But there's another side to Linda's career, a handful of cult films where she had more substantial roles and was able to reveal herself as the engaging screen presence that she really is. 1970's The Magic Garden Of Stanley Sweetheart was her first major part, and she appears in a colorful role as a free-spirited young woman who lives a hedonistic lifestyle. The main character, Stanley, was portrayed by a then-unknown Don Johnson, and marks his big screen debut. The film was released by MGM at a time when counterculture films were in vogue and big studios were trying to strike gold by connecting with a contemporary youth market. When it didn't catch on immediately, MGM quickly turned its back on the movie, and it has never received any kind of presentation on home video in the years since. A true cult item, it currently exists only in bootlegged forms, one of which is derived from a rare television appearance. Pending any kind of home release, this intriguing film has great potential for rediscovery, with its unique late ‘60s vibe and its fascination with frank sexuality, copious drug use, and youthful uncertainty. More commonly seen is 1972's The Folks At Red Wolf Inn, also known as Terror House, Terror At Red Wolf Inn, and a number of other retitles. Linda plays a young college student who is lured to a remote seaside manse where an elderly couple offers young women a free vacation, all so they can murder them and use their bodies as meat for them and the other members of their bizarre family of cannibals. Although this film is in desperate need of a quality restoration, it did enjoy several theatrical releases over the years, TV appearances, and manifestations on both VHS and numerous public domain DVDs. The Folks At Red Wolf Inn (or Terror House, as it will be referred to in the remainder of this piece) is a film that succeeds without resorting to excessive gore or any graphic violence, and is anchored by the quirky performances of its cast, including Linda’s sweetly naive turn as a girl who belatedly realizes she’s been far too trusting. Speaking to her in person, one realizes that Linda truly was playing a character. The sweetness is there, but forget all about the naive part. Gillen’s upbeat tone is informed by cool New York sophistication and lightning fast wit – she recounts an experience where Joan Rivers once tried to make a withering remark about the size of the diamonds in Linda's ring, saying “I spit on your rocks," to which Linda coolly replied “Be careful, these rocks spit back.” She is both intelligent and playful in the way she articulates, and has the unique ability to disagree without seeming judgmental in the process. Get her talking about moviemaking in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and you’re in for a real treat. Diabolique reached out to discover more about this intriguing figure and her remembrances from the aforementioned films, as well as her appearance in the controversial, rarely-seen 1980 psychological thriller Windows, which itself is on the verge of rediscovery via an upcoming Scream Factory release. Linda had many memories and insights to share -- the first being about her encounter with a Hollywood legend. Diabolique: So rumor has it Mae West was a fan of Terror House. Linda Gillen: Yes! It was very strange. Allen Actor [screenwriter of Terror House] called me one day, and he said "You're not gonna believe who's a big fan of Terror House -- Mae West!". I think she was shopping for a director for Sextette (1978), and she was considering Bud Townsend [director of Terror House]. So Allen Actor said "She's having a screening, do you want to meet her?" I said to my then-husband "Mae West!! We gotta go!" I called up a friend of mine, Jeannie Berlin, and we all got in the car and went down to USC for the screening. She came out of this limousine, and there were two buff guys wearing pink foundation on either side of her. They got her out of the car, and she had a mantilla on top of her head, this gold veil coming down in front of her. I guess it gave her height, because she was very tiny. She had this white brocade jacket with a mandarin collar, and it went all the way to the ground and I never saw her feet. She was just gliding across the ground, like a hoverboard. They put her in the seat and we watched the movie, and when it was over, one of her guys ran out to the car and came back with some photographs and she started to sign them. Jeannie and I kept taking them. Jeannie got three and I got three. It was only me, my ex-husband, Jeannie, Allen Actor and probably Allen's girlfriend at the time, Bud Townsend and his wife, and that was about all who were in the screening room. Diabolique: Did you grow up in New York? Linda Gillen: Yeah, Washington Heights. We had great theaters, big movie palaces. My parents would go to the Jersey Shore in the summer, and there was a non-equity theater there, it was called Surflight Theater. I just loved it. I mean, it was all these crazy freaks living there, and they would do musicals. The guy who ran it, his name was Joe Hayes, and his job from September until May was going to Catholic schools and putting on musicals. Then in the summer, he had this garage in Beach Haven, New Jersey. It was non-union, it was exploitative, and I didn't know anything about anything, so it was just ripe for me. I hated going to the beach, so I would go there and watch them rehearse in the daytime, and I just said "Can I be in it, too?" I had to be an apprentice first, and I had to clean out toilets and dressing rooms and all that crap. I came back the next year because it was better than doing nothing for the summer. It was really slave labor but I didn't care. I loved it, it was wonderful. It was show business, and I was in it! (laughs) I got a job in a theater out in the Hamptons, I did Gypsy and Once Upon A Mattress out there. Marcia Lewis was there, and Jonathan Tunick was the orchestra leader. It was great, I really miss that time, when you'd play three or four characters and change wigs and outfits. It prepared me, I was still not even 18 years old. I met a manager in one of those show business papers, and she sent me out on things and I got a Great Shakes commercial, that got me my union card. Then I did Up The Down Staircase (1967). Diabolique: And then you appeared briefly in The Producers (1967). Linda Gillen: That was the summer of 1967, I had just graduated high school the night before. I got the job because I went up to my agent's to get a check, I was painting my first apartment. There was this woman who came out and she said "I'm casting this movie, and you'd be perfect for it!", and it was The Producers. I play the saxophone, although there's no saxophone in the soundtrack. (laughs) Diabolique: I noticed that! Linda Gillen: There was another movie I did, but you can't even see me, it was Where Were You When The Lights Went Out (1968), but I really didn't do anything, it was just a lot of walking around, really a glorified extra. I didn’t even get to meet Doris Day! Then I went to California and did The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, after being there for a year. Diabolique: How did you get the part? Linda Gillen: I wasn't doing well in California, I had been there for a year and I wasn't getting anything. I got a television show with Michael Douglas where I did basically nothing. My agent wasn't too pleased that things weren't happening. She set me up for a television series called Then Came Bronson with Michael Parks and Jack Klugman, and I was supposed to be a camp counselor. I knew about Stanley Sweetheart, and I knew they were casting it, but my agent said "No, no, you're not right for it." But I had this appointment at MGM in Culver City. So the night before, I was talking to my friend Danny--I lived in Laurel Canyon, and Danny lived down the road in this house with Jobriath. Diabolique: The glam rock musician? Linda Gillen: Yes! But he hadn't gone into his space alien phase yet, he was still in his hippie stage, he was doing Hair. I went over that night and Danny and Jobriath were really stoned, and I said "I'm going up for the part of a camp counselor, but there's a part in this movie Stanley Sweetheart, and it's a real nice girl from the midwest who's a college student--you know, Cathy, the main part. And they were putting together my outfit, this crazy polyester dress and these beads and feathers, I looked like a Christmas tree. I went on the audition for the Michael Parks thing, and I knew they had another bungalow on the lot, so...I went into the bathroom and changed into this outfit and went over. I said "Hi, I have a three o'clock appointment" and they said "Your name's not on the list." And I said "That's strange, the guard at the gate had my name on the list..." and she said "Oh, okay!" So I waited and I went in and I met the director (Leonard Horn), "Very nice to meet you, blah blah blah..." and I never heard another word. My agent didn't even want to represent me anymore because I wasn't getting any work, and I had to figure out what to do next. Then Joe D'Agosta, he was a casting director who was living in the same...