Although no one can say for sure that whatever Lola wants Lola will get, so far, Lola Falana isn't doing badly. When she was just one of many talented singers and dancers around New York, Sammy Davis Jr. chose her as his lead ingénue in Golden Boy, which turned out to be a smash Broadway hit. Lola played in both the original New York cast and the show's road company. Then came television, including a prominent role in the ABC special The Swinging World of Sammy Davis, plus appearances on Hullaballoo, the Tonight Show, Hollywood Palace and the late Joey Bishop Show. As her career picked up even more steam, the 25-year-old Philadelphian began sandwiching in night-club engagements at such money meccas as The Sands in Las Vegas, Harrah's in Lake Tahoe, Deauville in Miami Beach and Basin Street East in New York. Now Lola has made her debut as a dramatic actress with a star-making role in the movie The Liberation of L. B. Jones, directed by William Wyler, who has guided 14 stars to Academy Awards. In case you're wondering, Lola most certainly wants to be Wyler's 15th Oscar winner. In the film, she plays the recalcitrant wife of L. B. Jones, a black undertaker in a small Southern town. The melodramatic plot revolves around the efforts of the town's white establishment to dissuade Lola from contesting a divorce, sought by her husband, that would require the naming of a corespondent--a prospect that has more than one of the town's studs, black and white, rather nervous. Whether her performance will get her an Oscar remains to be seen--but there's no denying that Lola is a lalapalooza of a lady.
