Hollywood has long had a reputation for devouring its young: Most child stars enjoy success when small and then quietly disappear at adulthood, along with their dimples. Because television is still in its infancy, predictions can't be made about whether its own child stars await similar fates. But now, at least one TV tot has come back: Her name is Sherry Jackson, and she is video's first freckle-faced juvenile to flower into a full-fledged femme fatale.
Beginning in 1953 when she was ten (she had already appeared in several films), Sherry Jackson played the part of Danny Thomas' pixyish daughter on TV's prototypal family comedy series Make Room for Daddy. At 15, Sherry outgrew the part and was "sent to college"--a grove of academe so distant she was never heard from again.
Sherry was sure that her acting career was at an end. Cute but chubby, she lived the fat life for a few years, until her own day of reckoning came. "I knew I lacked a shape," Sherry says, "and that if I could get one, my acting experience and whatever talent I had would get a chance to work for me."
So she went on a diet and attended bodybuilding classes. Within two months, Sherry dropped 20 pounds. "The bulges," she says, "got moved around and rejiggered." Sherry, now measuring a fetching 36-22-35, was soon back on TV, guesting on such shows as Batman, The Wild, Wild West and Star Trek.
Last year, producer-director Blake (Breakfast at Tiffany's, A Shot in the Dark and Days of Wine and Roses) Edwards saw Sherry on TV and quickly made room for her in his newest film, the recently released Gunn. Sherry's adult motion-picture debut casts her as private eye Craig Stevens' seductive bed warmer. Out from under wraps in a nude love scene only foreign audiences will see, she unveils an allure too hot for TV to handle. But as a new cinema siren, Sherry shows she's more than up to sex-star standards.
