As we all know, Jackie Evancho plays Isabel Grant, the protagonist’s daughter in Robert Redford‘s recently released film The Company You Keep.

Although the focus of young Jackie’s career is singing, she jumped at the chance to be on the big screen. Jackie was ten when she first became well-known. She’s now thirteen.  Why in the meantime has she appeared in only one film? Has she turned down roles? Now that’s a question an interviewer might do well to ask.

To our mind, with Jackie’s absence from the movies the film industry has wasted an opportunity. Maybe there just aren’t that many parts for young people in films.

Back in the forties and fifties, the big studios made children and families the focus of many of their films. Had Jackie come along then, we have little doubt the movie industry would have grabbed hold of her and never let her go. We can well imagine that she would have starred in more than one musical.

Of course all this is speculation, beyond proof, but it’s fun to think of the characters Jackie could have played were she born in an earlier age. Here are a few that come to mind.

Jackie loves horror films and TV shows, vampires, the walking dead, and the like. She strikes us someone who’d take to the novels of H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. Maybe her preference would be for monsters over musicals.

While we’re sure she would have loved to play Wednesday in The Addams Family (the 1964-66 TV show or the 1991 movie), we don’t think it would suit her angelic face. Instead, here’s the character in the horror genre we think she would have had great fun with and have done well in: the evil little girl Rhoda in the 1956 classic The Bad Seed. We think she could have sounded deliciously creepy saying sweetly to her mother (after having just murdered her latest victim), “You’re the prettiest mother, the nicest mother”. (Maybe Jackie did say something like that after she set her mother on fire at the 2012 Prayer Breakfast?)

Patty McCormack, who played psychotic little Rhoda in the movie, at the age of eight created the character on Broadway in the smash hit play of the same name. When she made the film, she was twelve-years-old. Since then, McCormack has had a successful career in television.

What more suitable role could there be for Jackie, she who has been called “an angel from another planet”, than that of Pollyanna! The delightful actor Hayley Mills gave a masterful performance playing that character in the 1960 Disney film. We think Jackie could have done just as well. She and Mills are equally charismatic and both come across as devilish and angelic in equal parts.

Hayley Mills is the daughter of a great British actor, John Mills. Since her days as a Disney Studios child star, she has found steady employment in television and cinema.

One of our favorite movies is The World of Henry Orient (1964), starring the incomparable Peter Sellers. The film follows the exploits of two teenage girls in the streets and parks of Manhattan. Rich girl Marian is neglected by her globe-trotting father (Tom Bosely) and her dissipated mother (Angela Landesbury). Valerie is the much-loved daughter of a single mother (Phyllis Thaxter). Jackie might have done well in either part.

The young women who played Marian and Valerie were outstanding natural actors, fantastically well directed by George Roy Hill (who is better known to audiences for his Robert Redford vehicles the 1973 film The Sting and the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid). It’s astonishing to think that neither girl had acted before.

Merrie Spaeth, who played Marian in the film, never again acted in a movie. Subsequently, she had single appearances in only two TV shows.  She went on to be a successful media specialist and publicist. Under President Reagan, she was media consultant at the White House.

Tippy Walker, who played Valerie in The World of Henry Orient, more or less retired from acting in 1972. In the ’60s she had recurring roles in Dr Kildare and Peyton Place.

Those of you who are old enough to remember the movies and television shows of the ’50s and ’60s might well be thinking, but what about the most obvious of all,  Brigitta Von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1965)? Indeed, it would be wonderful if Jackie could have a vehicle as well suited to her as that famous musical.

Beautiful Angela Cartwright (seen above) played Brigitta in the film. When she was cast she was already famous to American audiences as Danny Thomas‘s adopted daughter, Linda, in the 1953-1965 television show Make Room for Daddy (Angela joined the show in 1957). In the 1960s she again became a household name playing Penny Robinson in the family television show Lost in Space (1965-1968). Since then, she has seldom appeared on screen. Readers might wish to visit her website, Angela-Cartwright.com.

Angela Cartwright’s equally lovely older sister, Veronica Carwright, played a part in 1960 that we think Jackie would have had fun with, that of Cathy Brenner, the male protagonist’s little sister in Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds. Angela had a steady career in acting prior to The Birds, including parts in The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Since The Birds, she has acted in dozens of television shows and movies, notably in the science fiction films Alien (1979) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).

Those are but a few of the many parts Jackie Evancho might have excelled in in times past. No doubt those who have kept up with recent films could suggest modern roles Jackie might have played to her credit.

Update at 2:30 EST:

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Yesterday, Jackie’s Twitter account lit up. We learned that Jackie didn’t think her Taiwan concert was up to snuff and that while she hopes to visit some Asian countries, it will be when she’s older.

To our eye, the tweets sounded like Lisa, not Jackie wrote them, which, so we understand is often the case or has been in the past at least.

Today Jackie’s Twitter account lit up again, and this time we think the Tweets read like Jackie’s own voice. Of course we admit we could be all wrong and, were we to find out the truth we might have egg on our face.

Interesting tweets today, as you can see. Jackie’s mind has been dwelling on some horrid crimes of the 20th Century.

Elsewhere we speculated, indeed we felt pretty certain, that Jackie had no plans in the works for a new album. Today she confirmed that is true, there is no new album on the near horizon.

A short while back we lamented that Jackie and her team seemed to be neglecting social media as a way to make her fans feel connected and appreciated. Why not, we asked, like J K Rowling did, use social media to announce developments. Jackie’s fans are pleased (certainly we are) and honored that she has lately communicated information of real substance directly to her fan community via her Twitter account.

Today we thought we would challenge you by leaving the Tweets in the usual order. Read from bottom to top.

I wonder if Oprah of the famous book club asked Jackie, “What books do you like?”

Has any reporter asked Jackie, “Who is your favorite author?”

Here’s what we learn from a typical Jackie Evancho interview.

An abbreviated version of reporter Kristin Tillotson’s interview with Jackie appeared today in The Columbus Dispatch. The complete version was published in the January 10 Star Tribune (click here).

There’s not a lot of meat to this interview; the few tidbits that are new won’t make it into her biography.

We discover Jackie’s opinion of snakes, why humidifiers play a part in her life, and what or who Maroon 5 and Nero are; that Jackie saw a movie called Pitch Perfect (she was attracted to the title?); she likes Sponge Bob (a kiddy show?) and Last Airbender, whatever that is.

If you ever have Jackie over for dinner, don’t bother with blanquette de veau. Offer her a skewer of shrimp, a slab of steak, or a chunk of chicken. Don’t forget the vegetable. Jackie likes broccoli. (Why are we not surprised?)

Does the interview qualify as the best of Jackie Evancho on the web? It does not.

Of course the entertainment section of The Star Tribune is not Charlie Rose and Jackie only recently turned thirteen, but isn’t it possible to ask at least one original question to make the interview worthwhile? Eliciting Jackie’s opinion on snakes does not qualify.

Here’s a question we’d like to have answered: are there any books in your house, Jackie? If so, what’s your favorite? Do you have a favorite author?

Answer those questions Jackie and you could start a national dialogue on young readers in America.

We’ve never seen Jackie pictured with a book, as far as we know she’s never mentioned a single book, and we’re pretty sure no reporter has ever asked.

We hate to think of Jackie reaching adulthood not having been exposed to the great books of children’s literature, Good Night Moon, The Runaway Bunny, The Railway Children, Anne of Green Gables, the Harry Potter series, the My Dark Materials series, The Secret Garden, and on and on.

Maybe Jackie is a closet reader? If so, step forward Jackie. You could do a great service by encouraging young Americans to read good books.

(For a description of the books illustrated on this page, visit The 25 Best Young Adult Fiction Novels of All Time.)

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Ana Ausfeld Cornet has evidence that Jackie has indeed been within inches of a book, presumably her book, as we see in this photo Anna supplied us with. The book appears to be Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon. Amazon describes the two-part novel as:

Judgment of the Witch
The Carolinas, 1699: The citizens of Fount Royal believe a witch has cursed their town with inexplicable tragedies — and they demand that beautiful widow Rachel Howarth be tried and executed for witchcraft. Presiding over the trial is traveling magistrate Issac Woodward, aided by his astute young clerk, Matthew Corbett. Believing in Rachel’s innocence, Matthew will soon confront the true evil at work in Fount Royal….
Evil Unveiled
After hearing damning testimony, magistrate Woodward sentences the accused witch to death by burning. Desperate to exonerate the woman he has come to love, Matthew begins his own investigation among the townspeople. Piecing together the truth, he has no choice but to vanquish a force more malevolent than witchcraft in order to save his beloved Rachel — and free Fount Royal from the menace claiming innocent lives.

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And, as Ana also pointed out, we learned just today that Jackie read The Diary of Anne Frank: