The unique “evil little one” film that spawned a whole horror subgenre — from The Omen to Youngsters of the Corn to Orphan — was 1956’s The Dangerous Seed.
And its pigtailed protagonist — to many, as recognizable and beloved a horror villain as Freddie Krueger or Jason Voorhees — is little Rhoda, whose mom (Nancy Kelly) discovers over the course of the movie is definitely a murderous sociopath.
That function was performed by Patty McCormack, who was simply eight when she originated it on Broadway in a 1954 stage model of a success horror novel by William March.
Mervyn LeRoy, finest remembered for producing The Wizard of Oz, caught the present and determined to switch many of the forged to Hollywood for a movie adaptation — McCormack included.
Almost seventy years after the function, McCormack, 80, joined The Hollywood Reporter‘s It Occurred in Hollywood podcast to revisit the making of an everlasting horror basic.
“The [Broadway] director [Reginald Denham] was the one who actually guided my efficiency,” McCormack remembers. “He instructed me that it doesn’t matter what, I used to be at all times proper.
“If you consider that once you watch it subsequent time, you possibly can see I’ve no endurance for any of the adults’ opinions once they don’t coincide with my very own. I didn’t concentrate on the gore. I targeted on being egocentric and form of chilly.”
LeRoy was a “very type, easygoing” man who “appeared to love youngsters,” McCormack remembers. “He purchased me off instantly. He gave me a crimson bicycle to trip round Warner Brothers — so I might do away with a few of my child power and discover the lot.”
The movie was a box-office hit, incomes $4.1 million ($50 million in 2025) on a $1 million funds. It additionally earned 4 Academy Award nominations, together with one for McCormack, then 11, in the perfect supporting actress class — among the many youngest ever to obtain the dignity.
She tried for years after to distance herself from Rhoda. “It was one thing that didn’t get mentioned. There was that terrible expression, ‘You’re a has-been.’ So I did my finest to separate myself from that function and fame. It’s not the identical anymore — not with social media and folks appreciating histories of individuals’s work. It’s such a distinct world now.”
In addition to being beloved as an unconventional horror villain, McCormack has discovered over time that Rhoda has additionally come to be embraced as a counterculture hero — notably as The Dangerous Seed discovered new followers within the social revolt of the late Nineteen Sixties.
“My character went towards the grain of what was anticipated,” she says. “That was an necessary factor as they have been questioning their very own sexuality and different selections that they have been free to make.
“She’s a insurgent in sheep’s clothes, as a result of she attire very nice and fairly.”
Hearken to the complete episode of It Occurred in Hollywood that includes The Dangerous Seed star Patty McCormack. And for extra Hollywood lore subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you hearken to podcasts.