Today is Friday the 13th and that means it is time to once again give proper credit to the 1980 Volkswagen Scirocco – because without that car, Betsy Palmer might have never been cast in the role of Mrs. Voorhees [aka Jason’s mom] in the 1980 horror film that went on to spawn numerous sequels.
Palmer – who died at age 88 in 2015 – was an industry veteran with her most notable role being in 1955’s “Mister Roberts” alongside Hollywood heavyweights such as Henry Fonda, James Cagney, Jack Lemmon and William Powell – but figured she had a clunker when she read the script for “Friday the 13th”.
“I had a Mercedes, which I had for a number of years, and it broke down on the Connecticut turnpike. So I said to myself, ‘I need a new car, universe,'” explained Palmer, of her decision to accept the role, identifying a 1980 Volkswagen Scirocco as the car that would replace her dearly departed Mercedes.
“So the phone rang and my agent said, ‘How would you like to do a movie?’ and I said, ‘Great. That will pay for the car that I want to buy,'” Palmer recalled – only to find out it was a horror film.
“And I said, ‘Oh no,'” Palmer said. “So the script came and I read it and said, ‘What a piece of [shit]. No one is ever going to see this. It will come. And it will go. And I will have my Scirocco.'”
And the rest, as they say, was history. The original “Friday the 13th” was made on a budget of $500,000 – but went on to make $39.7 million and produced 12 sequels.
