\n\tThe original \u201cevil child\u201d movie that spawned an entire horror subgenre \u2014 from The Omen to Children of the Corn to Orphan \u2014\u00a0was 1956\u2019s The Bad Seed.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd its pigtailed protagonist \u2014 to many, as recognizable and beloved a horror villain as Freddie Krueger or Jason Voorhees \u2014\u00a0is little Rhoda, whose mother (Nancy Kelly) discovers over the course of the film is actually a murderous sociopath.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat role was played by Patty McCormack, who was just eight when she originated it on Broadway in a 1954 stage version of a hit horror novel by William March. <\/p>\n
\n\tMervyn LeRoy, best remembered for producing The Wizard of Oz, caught the show and decided to transfer most of the cast to Hollywood for a film adaptation \u2014 McCormack included.<\/p>\n
\n\tNearly seventy years after the feature, McCormack, 80, joined The Hollywood Reporter\u2018s It Happened in Hollywood<\/a> podcast to revisit the making of an enduring horror classic.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe [Broadway] director [Reginald Denham] was the one who really guided my performance,\u201d McCormack recalls. \u201cHe told me that no matter what, I was always right.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIf you think about that when you watch it next time, you can see I have no patience for any of the adults\u2019 opinions when they don\u2019t coincide with my own. I didn\u2019t focus on the gore. I focused on being selfish and kind of chilly.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLeRoy was a \u201cvery kind, easygoing\u201d man who \u201cseemed to like kids,\u201d McCormack recalls. \u201cHe bought me off immediately. He gave me a red bicycle to ride around Warner Brothers \u2014 so I could get rid of some of my kid energy and explore the lot.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe film was a box-office hit, earning $4.1 million ($50 million in 2025) on a $1 million budget. It also earned four Academy Award nominations, including one for McCormack, then 11, in the best supporting actress category \u2014\u00a0among the youngest ever to receive the honor.<\/p>\n \n\tShe tried for years after to distance herself from Rhoda. \u201cIt was something that didn\u2019t get discussed. There was that awful expression, \u2018You\u2019re a has-been.\u2019 So I did my best to separate myself from that role and reputation. It\u2019s not the same anymore \u2014\u00a0not with social media and people appreciating histories of people\u2019s work. It\u2019s such a different world now.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBesides being beloved as an unconventional horror villain, McCormack has found over the years that Rhoda has also come to be embraced as a counterculture hero \u2014 particularly as The Bad Seed found new fans in the social rebellion of the late 1960s.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMy character went against the grain of what was expected,\u201d she says. \u201cThat was an important thing as they were questioning their own sexuality and other choices that they were free to make.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cShe\u2019s a rebel in sheep\u2019s clothing, because she dresses really nice and pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tListen to the full episode of It Happened in Hollywood featuring The Bad Seed star Patty McCormack. And for more Hollywood lore subscribe on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you listen to podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The original \u201cevil child\u201d movie that spawned an entire horror subgenre \u2014 from The Omen to Children of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":337055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[166618,171,166619,53,5158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-337054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-thrpodcasts","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-it-happened-in-hollywood","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-podcasts","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115448615069996776","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}