Glamorous new Hollywood star Lindsay Wagner doesn't know how Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman and Gloria Swanson ever stood it!



All the adulation, all the bowing and scraping, given by studio workers to movie queens as their due.



Lindsay, a child of the youth revolution, and equalitarian, wants no part of the deference
paid to her on the set by makeup men, hairdressers, wardrobe women, crew members, extras, bit players — the whole bug-eyed shooting match.



"It kind of makes me sad," says the willowy beauty who stars with Timothy Bottoms in "The Paper Chase," her second feature film. "I don't think it should be.



"I've been told by people in the business that it's a good thing, a necessary thing, to be set apart once you've reached star status. But for me, it puts a barrier between the actor and
life. You are no longer a person when others fawn over you.



"I'm no more — or less — today than I was as a person or as an actress a year ago. I think I gave some creditable performances then, but it was in television, of course, so nobody paid much attention on the set. Now it's all handshakes and hugs. Now when I walk on the set, I'm a super-being to some people.



"I don't want to be put on a higher level. I know that some actors enjoy it. I don't. I insist
on people looking me in the eye. If someone respects me for what I'm doing — great. I am pleased with what I've done so far and I appreciate others enjoying it. But I want to feel that I'm a person, not an image."



Lindsay admittedly will have to work things out in the future with sound stagers conditioned to fall on their faces when a star comes into sight.



But right now, she tells it, she's trying to adjust to a way of life in which film roles, by the
nature of the Hollywood system, will be few and far between.



The husky-voiced newcomer isn't about to relinquish stardom now that she's achieved it, but she confesses she was a shade happier when she worked constantly in television — in bit parts for the first three months of her career, then in guest star assignments beginning with a
"Marcus Welby, M.D." episode.



That all changed when producer-director Robert Wise tested her for the starring role opposite Peter Fonda in "Two People," decided that she was a powerhouse of an actress, and fought Columbia tooth and nail to sign her for the part. When the studio insisted on an established
female star, Wise moved the project to Universal, Lindsay's own home lot.



She has no intention of being just another pretty face and vibrant voice, and hopes within
contractual limitations, to "pick and choose what I feel is really good. I feel strongly
about the medium, the power of it, and so much misuse of it.



Lindsay's unusual-for-a-girl first name continues to bother Hollywood but not Lindsay.