Millions of music lovers remember prolific singer and songwriter Jackie DeShannon for her beloved Top 10 singles “What the World Needs Now Is Love” and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” during the ‘60s. But what they might not know is that the pretty slender blonde embarked on an acting career for a short period of time during that swinging decade. Her film debut was in the beach romp Surf Party (1964) starring Bobby Vinton and Pat Morrow. DeShannon played the doe-eyed, tomboy Junior who accompanies her friends Morrow and Lory Patrick to Malibu from Arizona to visit Morrow’s brother who is the leader of an elite surfing group called The Lodge. Morrow is romanced by Vinton the operator of a local surf shop while Jackie pairs up with Kenny Miller as a surfer who breaks his arm trying to gain entrance into an elite surfer gang.
After appearing in the low-budget drama Intimacy (1966), Jackie teamed with Bobby Vee for the youth-oriented musical C’mon, Let’s Live a Little (1967). It was one of those too-square-to-be-hip movies the major studios released in the late sixties trying to attract the college crowd. DeShannon soon let the acting drift and concentrated on her music career exclusively culminated with a Grammy Award for co-writing the hit song “Bette Davis Eyes” in the eighties.
Read my interview with her in my book Drive-in Dream Girls.
It was such a surprise to find her playing a hooker in INTIMACY, because she always seems like a goody-two-shoes kind of gal.
One of her most unusual performances was in an episode of MY THREE SONS, in which she performed “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” with co-star Don Grady. In the episode’s final credits, the song was credited to series producer Edmund Hartmann-and William Shakespeare!
I caught Intimacy on TCM a few years back. Just as claustrophobic as the remake (The Washington Affair) 10 years later with Tom Selleck and Carol Lynley.