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The days of avocados

BOOKS & IDEAS

In 1958, Elaine Dundy glimpsed the future in a tale of unencumbered youth. Now reissued, 'The Dud Avocado' is making another splash.

September 30, 2007|Steffie Nelson | Special to The Times

Already singled out in O the Oprah Magazine and named an Amazon.com "mover and shaker," this edition will, Dundy hopes, introduce a new readership to the unforgettable Sally Jay Gorce, described by one reviewer as a cross between Carrie Bradshaw and Holden Caulfield. Dundy, for one, prefers comparisons to Bridget Jones. "I think she's adorable," she said, admitting she'd only seen the Bridget Jones movies. "Better the second than the first," she asserted. "By then she's arrived."

And now, the movie version

Soon, Sally Jay should be arriving on the big screen as well. Sara Risher, a former New Line executive who now heads a production company called Chick Flicks, has successfully negotiated the rights to "The Dud Avocado" with 20th Century Fox, which acquired them in perpetuity when it was first published.

A longtime fan of Dundy's "wicked, wild sense of humor" and now a friend who attended the author's 86th birthday party this summer along with Gore Vidal and Gloria Vanderbilt, Risher has already raised half the money.

Dundy and director Blake Edwards had lunch together almost 50 years ago to discuss working on the film, but he was committed to another movie at the time: "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Risher believes 2007 is a better moment for "The Dud Avocado" anyway, and it is exciting to imagine a free-spirited late-'50s girl viewed through a contemporary, nonjudgmental lens. The producer sees someone like Natalie Portman or "a younger Claire Danes" in the role of Sally Jay Gorce and intends to keep the first-person narration and the period setting. "People were telling me they loved the book but they wanted to update it. I always thought that was wrong." The period, she noted, explains Sally Jay's naivete. She added that Montreal, where one of the investors is from, could easily stand in for 1958 Paris.

Most important, Risher isn't willing to waste any time. "Elaine just wants to see the movie made while she's still with us," she said. "And now that's my goal too."

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