Young Debbie Edwards, Found: Lana Wood on "The Searchers" | Interviews

Co-star Jeffrey Hunter made an even bigger impression. “He was absolutely amazing to me,” Wood enthused. “Everybody else would say good morning to me and ruffle my hair. He would sit down on the ground and talk to me. Was I alright? Did I want to talk about anything I had to do in the film? Of course, I was mesmerized by those blue eyes.”

Even Ken Curtis, who would later become better known as Festus Haggen on TV’s “Gunsmoke,” would whittle carvings to give to her.

John Ford; not so nice. “He hated children,” Wood said with a laugh. One of the few times he spoke to her was to growl a direction—to bend at the waist in the scene where young Debbie runs to the family graveyard to hide from the marauding Scar. “I was absolutely frozen with terror,” not of Scar, she clarified, but of Ford.

Wood can lay claim to being responsible for a blooper in the film that I, for one, had never caught. It occurs in the scene in which Ward Bond’s Rev. Captain Clayton is deputizing Jeffrey Hunter’s character, Martin, who will accompany Ethan on his obsessive half-decade-long search. Clayton is interrupted at one point after saying the oath, “faithfully discharge.” When he asks young Debbie where he left off, Wood replies, “faithfully fulfill.” Bond plows on, “Faithfully discharge.”

“I changed it and nobody said a word,” Wood said. “It sticks out like a sore thumb to me, but no fan has ever mentioned [it].”

“The Searchers” is but one career highlight for Wood. She is best known for her fleeting but indelible role as Plenty O’Toole opposite Sean Connery’s 007 in “Diamonds are Forever.” She probably gets asked about that one the most (usually along the lines of, “How did Sean Connery prepare to play James Bond?”), but Wood’s estimable resume contains memorable appearances on such iconic TV series as “Have Gun - Will Travel,” “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color,” “The Fugitive,”  “Night Gallery” and “Peyton Place,” in which she starred as abused wife Sandy Webber. Don’t get her started on co-star Ryan O’Neal. “He endeared himself to me by eating while standing next to the camera [when he was supposed to be interacting with her] while they were filming my close-ups,” she laughed ruefully. “I wanted to throttle him.”

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