Role More Than Skin-Deep for Davidovich

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta ... --Vladimir Nabokov, in his novel “Lolita”

Though the voluptuous body she flaunts on screen will never be mistaken for that of the skinny adolescent nymphet Nabokov immortalized in his classic love story, Lolita Davidovich inspires that same kind of passion.

Playing the title role in “Blaze,” the story of the fiery-eyed stripper who stirred scandal in the bayou when she stole the heart of eccentric Louisiana Gov. Earl Long in 1959, Davidovich is ablaze with a sensuous mix of sex and sweetness that is likely to weaken the knees of grown men while simultaneously drumming up respect for the profession of at least this one “exotic dancer.”

“Blaze Starr was such an anachronism, that was the exciting part for me,” said Davidovich, the unknown Canadian actress who nabbed the role that had once been assigned to Melanie Griffith. “Despite the world of her work, she was such a lady, she had such a sweetness, it was wild. That was what I had to try to capture. She’s so much more than a stripper.

“Every stripper had a gimmick. Her specialty was her sense of humor and she was always talking when she was on stage. That’s what burlesque was all about, dating all the way back to Aristophanes. They used puns and wisecracks. She did it in such a good-natured way that there was nothing seedy about it. And that lightness and festiveness was essentially what I had to grasp.”

Davidovich also had to grow into the role, physically, adding bulk to a figure that would look more at home on a ballet stage than on a strip-show runway.

“I was 20 pounds heavier when I did the movie, but obviously I don’t look anything like that,” Davidovich said, gesturing to her once-again skinny body and conjuring up the image of Blaze Starr’s celebrated 38DD chest. “That was wardrobe. Those were rented.”

So, how did an actress of such lithe proportions end up being picked for the title role of a movie that co-stars the quintessential leading man, Paul Newman? When Davidovich’s selection was announced early this year, over several well-known candidates, the one-word chorus in Hollywood was, “Who?”

Lolita (her real name) Davidovich was born in London, Ontario, Canada, to Yugoslav parents. She spoke nothing but Serbian until she entered kindergarten. She says she is 28; a short profile in next month’s Vanity Fair lists her as 27; someone close to the casting of “Blaze” insists she is at least 30.

What is known for certain is that the auburn-haired actress could boast of nothing more than one-line-of-dialogue type roles in “The Big Town” and “Adventures in Babysitting” when she auditioned for “Blaze.” When asked what she had done before landing this choice part, Davidovich replied, “nothing I care about.”

Melanie Griffith, fresh off her Oscar nomination for “Working Girl,” was reportedly going to play Blaze, but had to drop out when she became pregnant. Vicki Thomas, the film’s casting director, interviewed more than 600 women and director Ron Shelton auditioned another 100 or so before they settled on Lolita. Among the other actresses considered were established stars Diane Lane and Virginia Madsen.

“It was a quality of openness and straightforwardness and good-heartedness that came through that was clearly not being faked,” said Shelton, explaining why he chose Davidovich. “She doesn’t have a rigorous set of acting ideologies that you could never get past. She’s open to any suggestion and interpretation. And she brings a kind of enthusiasm and ebullience when she walks into a room and that’s also something you can’t fake.”

Shelton said that Newman’s box-office name gave him the freedom to cast an unknown as his co-star. He called Davidovich’s performance “extraordinary,” saying “she pulled off something that was a lot harder than she knew, and she did it with panache.” Her only difficulty throughout the long shoot, Shelton said, was mustering the bravado to project her voice with the requisite wry, sultry confidence during the stripping scenes.

“It was a nightmare logistically,” Shelton said. “We had 300 extras, and you shoot it without music, yet she had to have a physical rhythm to dance to. So we put a wireless click track in her ear to give her a beat, and we had all these sailors screaming in pantomime. For her to seem at ease in that surreal environment is a major trick. And to do it in the second week in her first major movie is even a bigger trick. It’s a performance.”

Davidovich, who describes herself as “reserved and very private,” said she had no qualms about taking on such a sexy role her first time out, nor about exposing so much of herself on screen. For one thing, she insisted, what you see is more movie magic than her own body. With all the body makeup, theatrical costumes, padding and props, she said it was easy to hide her inhibitions and just let the riotous stripper side of the character roar out.

And besides, she said, “the next time the audience sees me, I’ll be a demure Slavic peasant or something.”