Tatum on Location

Following in Liz's footsteps

National Velvet, the story of a girl jockey who wins the British Grand National, made a star out of twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. Now, a generation later, MGM is making a sequel, International Velvet, that may push Tatum O'Neal, who won an Academy Award for Paper Moon when she was nine, from child star into adult actress. Much of the film is being shot along the scenic coast of southwest England, where cliffs rise dramatically from the sea and green fields are still dotted with ancient thatch-roofed cottages. TIME Associate Editor Gerald Clarke visited the set and filed this report:

Three times Tatum O'Neal has galloped along the beach, and three times her horse has refused to turn and come into range for a closeup. Finally she rides up to Director Bryan Forbes. "I won't ride this horse any more!" she sternly announces. "That sounds very much like an ultimatum, Bryan," one of the crew members laughingly yells from the background. Forbes, like an indulgent father, gives way, and Tatum is handed another horse.

In the film Tatum, who turns 14 Nov. 5, is supposed to age from twelve to 18. In real life her emotional age has an even greater spread--from perhaps nine to 39. Part of the time she is a little girl who shouts at horses and is prone to a little girl's demands and pouts. Part of the time --the larger part--she is already a mature woman, polite and preternaturally poised, with the all-knowing eyes of someone who has seen it all. As the daughter of Movie Star Ryan O'Neal, she probably has. "The problem wasn't in making her look and act 18," says Forbes. "The real problem was to make her a believable twelve-year-old."

National Velvet ended with Elizabeth Taylor--Velvet--winning the Grand National. International Velvet opens years later when her niece, who has been brought up in Arizona, comes to live with her in England. The niece's ambition: to ride for Britain in the Olympics.

Forbes originally asked Elizabeth Taylor to play the aunt. When she refused, Forbes turned to a good English actress by the name of Nanette Newman --who also happens to be Mrs. Bryan Forbes. That settled, Tatum seemed inevitable for the niece. "She has something audiences respond to," says Forbes. "But don't ask me what it is. I don't know." Whatever it is, it is valuable. Tatum will get $400,000 for Velvet, plus a percentage of the profits. For her last hit, Bad News Bears, she got $350,000--and a chunk of the profits.

Tatum's duenna, friend and confidante on the set is Diane Lewis, 34, the wife of Hedgemon, a black boxer Ryan O'Neal promoted. Tatum makes playful faces at her during odd breaks in the shooting and puts her arm around her afterward. "She's matured so much over these past few months!" exclaims Diane. "In Paper Moon she had to wear high-button shoes--retarded children's shoes, she called them--and she hated them. One day we had to spend the whole day trying to persuade her to put them on. There's nothing like that now. This is the first picture in which she's been a true professional."

Indeed Tatum's major fault, says Lewis, is that she tries too hard. "She gets upset if she doesn't do something exactly right. She wants to be perfect." Those who know her say that the brash brat is now almost shy. Then too she misses her father, her friends and her brother Griffin. Though Griffin is only a year younger, Tatum plays mother as well as sister. " 'O.K., Mother, O.K., Mom,' he always answers sarcastically when I tell him to do something," she says. " 'Jesus Christ,' I tell him. 'I'm doing my best. You're too young. You don't know what I'm going through.' " Tatum sighs, like any mother, any age, anywhere. "I'll wait until he gets older and tell him.''

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