The original “evil child” movie that spawned an entire horror subgenre — from The Omen to Children of the Corn to Orphan — was 1956’s The Bad Seed.
And its pigtailed protagonist — to many, as recognizable and beloved a horror villain as Freddie Krueger or Jason Voorhees — is little Rhoda, whose mother (Nancy Kelly) discovers over the course of the film is actually a murderous sociopath.
That role was played by Patty McCormack, who was just eight when she originated it on Broadway in a 1954 stage version of a hit horror novel by William March.
Mervyn LeRoy, best remembered for producing The Wizard of Oz, caught the show and decided to transfer most of the cast to Hollywood for a film adaptation — McCormack included.
Nearly seventy years after the feature, McCormack, 80, joined The Hollywood Reporter‘s It Happened in Hollywood podcast to revisit the making of an enduring horror classic.
“The [Broadway] director [Reginald Denham] was the one who really guided my performance,” McCormack recalls. “He told me that no matter what, I was always right.
“If you think about that when you watch it next time, you can see I have no patience for any of the adults’ opinions when they don’t coincide with my own. I didn’t focus on the gore. I focused on being selfish and kind of chilly.”
LeRoy was a “very kind, easygoing” man who “seemed to like kids,” McCormack recalls. “He bought me off immediately. He gave me a red bicycle to ride around Warner Brothers — so I could get rid of some of my kid energy and explore the lot.”
The film was a box-office hit, earning $4.1 million ($50 million in 2025) on a $1 million budget. It also earned four Academy Award nominations, including one for McCormack, then 11, in the best supporting actress category — among the youngest ever to receive the honor.
She tried for years after to distance herself from Rhoda. “It was something that didn’t get discussed. There was that awful expression, ‘You’re a has-been.’ So I did my best to separate myself from that role and reputation. It’s not the same anymore — not with social media and people appreciating histories of people’s work. It’s such a different world now.”
Besides being beloved as an unconventional horror villain, McCormack has found over the years that Rhoda has also come to be embraced as a counterculture hero — particularly as The Bad Seed found new fans in the social rebellion of the late 1960s.
“My character went against the grain of what was expected,” she says. “That was an important thing as they were questioning their own sexuality and other choices that they were free to make.
“She’s a rebel in sheep’s clothing, because she dresses really nice and pretty.”
Listen to the full episode of It Happened in Hollywood featuring The Bad Seed star Patty McCormack. And for more Hollywood lore subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.
