What happened to Sue Lyon? Little is known about the 'Lolita' star at age 73 -- but her estranged daughter offers some insights
Not all then-and-now stories have a pleasant ending.
Little is known about the current state of Sue Lyon, who won a Golden Globe for "Lolita" as a teenager in 1962. Seemingly blonde and bubbly, the young starlet enjoyed about a decade of work in Hollywood before she fell off the map, never appearing in another on-screen role after 1980.
The only other readily available information about Lyon, now 73, is her marital history: The Iowa native wed five times, each time ending in divorce. Just one of those marriages produced a child -- and that child, Nona Harrison, is our only insight into what's happened over the subsequent three-quarters of Lyon's life.
"Every child should grow up with parents that support, love, and guide them. My life’s lesson was to learn how to succeed without that guidance," Harrison wrote in 2015 in a public blog post. "After age 12, I would never feel her touch, or see her smile of joy again. And year after year of this separation is where my spiritual work began. I had to work through the feelings of a child that had been abandoned."
See Sue Lyon during her career:
According to a past Facebook post by Harrison, Lyon was diagnosed at a young age with bipolar manic depressive disorder, and she never wanted to be a mom. Harrison also noted that her parents "showed me at a very young age what it looks like to give up on your hopes and dreams."
Harrison's father is football player Roland Harrison, who was largely absent during her childhood, and she's written about the unique challenges of her early childhood as a biracial child with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed mother:
Change is happening, I am patient and blessed for what is coming. #nonatruthseeker #truthseeker
A post shared by Nona Harrison Gomez (@nona_truthseeker) on Feb 22, 2018 at 12:37pm PST
"When I decided to forgive them, to see them for who they really were (two people who did not want to be parents), that is when I was able to live in my truth," Harrison continued. "And let go of the pain and hurt of what they could, or should have been."
So where is Sue Lyon now? It's unclear if she has any relationship with her daughter, and her most recent divorce was in 2002. She hasn't been in the spotlight for decades, and it seems we should expect it to stay that way.
