Reviving a Christmas Memory

By SUSAN KING

Dec. 21, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Many consider Truman Capote’s autobiographical “A Christmas Memory” one of the finest short stories ever written, and the acclaimed television adaptation has been a holiday staple since it was first broadcast as an hourlong special on ABC in 1966.

Now the material has been refashioned as a two-hour movie for CBS, with Patty Duke in the starring role.

Set in a small Southern town in 1934, “A Christmas Memory” relates the simple, touching story of the indelible bond between a young boy named Buddy and his elderly, distant cousin Sook and their last Christmas together.

Geraldine Page won an Emmy Award for her heartbreaking performance as Sook in the 1966 version, which was co-adapted and narrated by Capote, the author of such literary classics as “Other Voices, Other Rooms,” “In Cold Blood” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” The Family Channel will repeat the version starring Page on Christmas Eve.

The drama was worth filming again because “it’s such an important, classic story,” says director and producer Glenn Jordan (“Promise,” “Sarah, Plain and Tall”).

“So many children fantasize about a perfect companion, and this is about a child who actually has a perfect companion--not his parents, but this wonderful friend who was wise and emotionally fulfilling,” he explains. “There is a kind of a nostalgia for that when you grow up. You remember how you fantasized about one or wanted to have one and didn’t.”

Shot on location in the quaint Georgia towns of Peachtree City, Sharpsburg and Senoia, the new “Christmas Memory” also stars Eric Lloyd (“The Santa Clause”) as Buddy; Piper Laurie as Buddy’s stern cousin Jenny; Anita Gillette as cousin Callie and Jefrrey DeMunn as his cousin Seabon.

“A Christmas Memory” is the favorite short story of Capote buff Duane Poole, who wrote the CBS adaptation. Three years ago he penned the teleplay to the NBC movie “One Christmas,” which was based on a little-known prequel to “A Christmas Memory.” The Capote estate, which previously had turned down all requests to have “Christmas Memory” adapted as a two-hour TV movie, was so pleased with Poole’s work that it gave him and executive producer John Dayton the rights to “Memory.”

But Poole soon realized that there were wasn’t enough of a story to fill two hours.

“It’s such a slight story, very long on emotion and very short on incident,” Poole says. “To fill out a TV movie, I realized I had a lot of work to do. I wanted to preserve and protect the emotion that is inherent in the story. I didn’t want to damage it, but I wanted to fulfill the task of making it fit two hours.”

So Poole decided to populate the story with characters based on Capote’s real cousins. “I read everything I could on Capote’s life at that time,” Poole says. “His parents split up early on and they left him in care of his relatives. So he grew up in a house where nobody was really under 60--three elderly cousins who were female and one gentleman. His life was so shaped by this period.”

Poole even added a neighbor (Julia McLlvaine) based on novelist Harper Lee (“To Kill a Mockingbird”), who lived next door to Capote as a child.

Though Duke had only seen bits and pieces of the Page version of “A Christmas Memory,” the late actress’ presence loomed very large in her mind.

“My memory probably plays tricks on me,” Duke says. “I am sure there have been other roles in the last 40-some-odd years that have been as daunting, but I can’t put my finger on which one.”

Duke was “very intimidated” by the memory of Page and “my worship of her as an actress, but even more so because this is such a personal story. Each of us reads something into it. I don’t think there is [just] one thing we get out of it. Though Truman was being autobiographical, I think he also meant for us to take that journey these characters do. Each of us is that little boy and each of us is that lady. It’s one of the best love stories I’ve ever read or played.”

She finally got into Sook’s skin when she decided to chop off her own hair. “The script describes her as a woman with shorn white hair,” Duke explains. “So first I went and had my hair stripped. But it was long--to my shoulders. There is something about the movement of hair at that length that was youthful. It was just annoying me.”

Duke also was annoyed with the wig that had been made for her. “There was this passion to get as close as I could to what Truman intended,” she reports.

So on the first day of filming, with director Jordan’s blessing, Duke had her hairdresser cut off her hair to her jawline. That moment, she says, “was the beginning of me taking and making Sook mine and giving myself to Sook.”

Though Sook is described as slow and childlike by her cousins, Duke found her one of the wisest people she’d ever met. “Then I decided, of course, Sook doesn’t think she’s slow. Sook doesn’t think she’s odd. She just does what she does.”

Duke acknowledges she had many insecure moments in the role. “The biggest problem was for me to play older than me and still be childlike. Glenn was very good at reminding me to keep the child.”

Says Poole: “I can’t imagine anyone else playing that role. The moment she walked on the set with her hair cropped and dyed and in her outfit, she was Sook.”

The new version of “A Christmas Memory” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on CBS.; the 1966 version airs Wednesday at noon on the Family Channel.