Marilyn Burns ('The Texas Chainsaw Massacre')

You Know Who Rocks? Marilyn Burns.

By Stacie Ponder

"Are you sure you don't mind talking in here?", says Marilyn Burns as she opens the door to her hotel room. What Marilyn Burns obviously fails to realize is that if, upon my asking her for an interview she had said, "Sure, we can talk. You sit over there in that garbage dumpster whilst I sun myself over here. Oh, and I'll be throwing rocks at you while I talk - you know, for fun", I still would have jumped at the chance.

Burns's performance as Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of my all-time favorites and, I believe, one of the greatest in any horror film. Sally is a landmark character- she can undoubtedly be considered the genre's first 'Final Girl' in a landmark film. Chainsaw has rightfully earned its place at the top of the heap, thanks in no small part to Marilyn Burns who can, simply put, scream like no other.

I was duly honored to get a chance to have a lengthy chat with Ms. Burns- and she was so nice that she didn't throw anything at me while we talked. She was even surprised that she'd be Pretty/Scary's Woman of the Month: "Maybe Woman of Thirty Years Ago."

STACIE: Do you enjoy horror movies? Would you consider yourself a fan of the genre?

MARILYN: Oh yeah, when I was a little girl, I used to go on Saturday mornings and watch all the horror movies back-to-back. I've always liked 'em.

S: So much of your body of work is focused on the genre.

M: Oh, I've done so much other work but everybody always focuses on the horror!

S: Well then let's talk about what else you've done.

M: I've done the stage - that's how I was trained. You'd never know it, though. I did Brewster McCloud with Robert Altman and the way I got that was- I was on summer vacation and they were hiring tour guides.

They were shooting Brewster McCloud with Sally Kellerman and the whole Altman crew; they'd just finished M.A.S.H. I decided I needed to be in that movie so I got a job as a tour guide and took my tour right into the set and I got to meet everybody and it was really cool. I got a small part in that.

Author's note: I wholeheartedly approve of such borderline-devious methods for getting into a film.

M: I did Lovin' Molly- I auditioned for Sidney Lumet and I got a part I the movie with Beau Bridges, Blythe Danner, Anthony Perkins. I was to play this character and I got all excited; then I get a call and they say 'Marilyn, there's this agency in New York and in order to get Beau, Blythe, and Anthony, we have to have this young girl named Susan Sarandon. We'll give you another small part and then you're gonna be on the set everyday as the stand-in for 6-foot Blythe Danner and Susan Sarandon.' The crew hated me because they had to make apple carts because - look at me! Can you imagine?

Author's note: Marilyn Burns is not tall.

S: How did Chainsaw come about?

M: Well, that's when I met Tobe. These guys came on the set when we were eating and the New Yorkers were pissed because they put liquid smoke on the barbecue in Austin, the New Yorkers are going 'Liquid smoke! We're not eating liquid smoke! This sucks!', like this is the crappiest food and they're all pissed.

Then these two guys come over and they're trying to eat dinner and they're watching. Tobe Hooper and Kim (Henkel), the writer and director. They go 'You're not part of the crew! Get outta here!'. So they got kicked off the set and I sort of met 'em that way. They knew I was part of the crew and then I auditioned for Chainsaw and I got it- so that was a good thing. I just remember I really wanted that part.

Burns (center) in the 1974 classic, Texas Chainsaw Massacre

S: It's a great role. For the genre, it's, I think she's a great character. The other characters in the film all kind of get an inkling that something's not right, you know, like Pam, Teri McMinn's character.

M: Yeah, she's reading the horoscope, something's amiss. Yeah, something's gonna happen, oh boy! But that was the first time that they all, you know, they did something like that. It's been done 5,000 times since then- maybe 50,000 times- but you know, the whole beginning sets you up to be scared. The way they focus the camera and the flashes on that specially sculpted dead body. So you know, it was kinda fun.

S: The whole movie's got a vibe to it that just - it's still, I mean, I've seen it- I'm not one of those people who's seen it 700 times...

M: That's good!

S: ...but when I do see it, it's still terrifying. It really gets to me, even though I know what's gonna happen.

M: I still jump when I watch the movie by myself- it still makes me jump when I'm pushing Franklin (Paul Partain) in the wheelchair and he goes, 'There's a light!', and RARR! You know?

S: Yeah!

M: It just makes me jump, which is surprising, 'cause I shouldn't have any reaction at all.

S: From that point on Sally is just, you know, that's her first, she doesn't enter the house and think, 'Hey, something's not right here!'. It's like, she's pushing her annoying brother in the wheelchair.

M: Oh, God was he annoying! The thing is, that guy's the nicest guy in the world, but I didn't know it until 20 years later because he acted like Franklin the whole time, he was like a method actor.

He continued to be just as whiny and horrible when they yelled 'cut'. He'd sit in his wheelchair and say, 'Someone get me a Coke!' and we'd go 'Hey, Paul, you're not crippled. Get up and get it yourself. 'Nyah nyah nyah- he'd whine! And I'm sure someone finally got the guy a Coke. It was weird.

I should've known he was acting, but, it was 20 years later when I talked to him and he said 'I felt so bad being so terrible!', and I'm thinking, 'Paul, I thought you WERE terrible.' He was just doing his job, and I mean brilliantly, especially since we were so young then, who would have thought some jerk would stay in character the whole time and be such a terrific guy and you'd not know it until 20 years later?

Author's note: It was indeed ballsy of Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper to make the cripple the least likable character in the film. Really, people like the cannibal weirdo family more than they like Franklin. Kudos to the late Paul Partain for a great performance.

Marilyn Burns as Sally Hardesty

S: Didn't Tobe kind of set you two against each other to get emotion out of you?

M: I know right before the flashlight scene, where we fight over it, he said, 'Paul said this about you,' and then he went to Paul and said, 'Marilyn said this about you', but it was already set. I mean, the whole shoot was real hard and the more Paul whined as a character the more we went, 'Oh God!'"