Suggestible Sherrie
by Zappedfan
Copyright© 2026 by Zappedfan
Fan Fiction Story: 1t's 1955 and Sherrie North has been hired to replace Marilyn Monroe and costar with Betty Grable in "How To Be Very, Very Popular." This is her big break and she's VERY eager to please. It's also discovered that she is very easy to hypnotize. Since her character spends much of the film in a trance, the Director asks Sherrie if she'll allow herself to be hypnotized during filming. Of course she will. She'll do anything. Literally ANYTHING! Hi-jinks ensue.
Tags: Hypnosis Heterosexual Celebrity Fan Fiction Humor Workplace Alternate History Humiliation AI Generated
The soundstage at 20th Century Fox buzzed with the low hum of anticipation on a crisp morning in early 1955. How to Be Very, Very Popular was in pre-production, a breezy musical comedy remake of the old She Loves Me Not, retooled as a showcase for Betty Grable’s final big-screen hurrah and the fresh face of Sheree North, the studio’s latest hopeful to step into the spotlight being vacated—willingly or not—by an increasingly unpredictable Marilyn Monroe.
Sheree, with her athletic dancer’s build and bright, eager energy, sat at the long table surrounded by the cast and crew. Director Nunnally Johnson paced slowly as he read stage directions. The script called for Sheree’s character, Curly Flagg—a wide-eyed burlesque dancer on the run from gangsters—to be hypnotized by a quirky college professor type, putting her into a suggestible trance for much of the film’s chaos.
They reached the hypnosis scene in the table read. Johnson read the lines in his dry, precise way: “Now, Curly, look into my eyes ... deeper ... deeper ... you’re feeling very relaxed ... your eyelids are heavy...”
Sheree leaned forward slightly, her gaze fixed on the script page as though imagining the professor’s stare. Her shoulders softened. Her breathing slowed. Her eyes glazed, pupils dilating just a fraction. She didn’t blink.
The room kept going. Robert Cummings, playing the professor, delivered his next line with theatrical flourish. Sheree didn’t respond. She simply sat, motionless, lips parted in the faintest hint of a dreamy smile.
Someone chuckled. “She’s really selling it.”
“Method acting already?” Betty Grable quipped, glancing over with a wink.
They read on for another page. Still nothing from Sheree. No line delivery, no small gestures, no shift in posture. The laughter faded into puzzled murmurs.
Johnson stopped. “Sheree? Honey, your line.”
Silence.
He leaned in. “Sheree?”
Her head tilted ever so slightly, as if listening to a distant voice, but she didn’t answer.
A production assistant touched her shoulder. No reaction. Her skin felt cool, her arm limp when lifted.
Panic flickered through the room. “Is she ... asleep?”
“Call the nurse!”
They tried snapping fingers, shaking her gently, even splashing water on her face. Nothing. Sheree remained seated in perfect, serene stillness, eyes open but unfocused, breathing shallow and even.
Someone remembered a story about her uncanny responsiveness during rehearsals. Johnson, ever the pragmatist, sent for Dr. Elias Voss, a respected stage hypnotist the studio occasionally consulted for authenticity in psychological scenes. Voss arrived within the hour, a calm, silver-haired man in a neat gray suit.
He studied Sheree for a long moment, then spoke softly. “Sheree, on the count of three, you will awaken feeling refreshed and alert. One ... two ... three.”
Her eyelids fluttered. She blinked. Color returned to her cheeks. She looked around, confused. “Did I ... miss something?”
The room erupted in relieved laughter and applause. Voss explained quietly: Sheree was an extraordinarily susceptible subject—what clinicians called a “somnambulist” level hypnotic. The mere vivid imagination of entering trance, combined with the rhythmic reading of the induction lines, had sent her under instantly and deeply. It wasn’t acting; it was real.
Johnson’s eyes lit up. “That’s gold,” he muttered. “Real trance. Authentic reactions. No one will suspect it’s not performance.” He turned to Sheree. “Would you be willing to work with Dr. Voss on set? For the hypnosis scenes only, of course. We keep you under just long enough to film, then bring you right out.”
Sheree, still a little dazed but flattered by the attention, nodded. “If it helps the picture ... sure.”
Filming began. Voss was on payroll, discreetly present for every trance sequence. The method worked beautifully at first: Sheree slipped into hypnosis effortlessly, her performance eerily lifelike—blank stare, pliant movements, total obedience to the scripted suggestions. Critics would later rave about her “uncanny vulnerability” on screen.
But the deeper trance made her dangerously open. Suggestions stuck like glue, and not just from Voss or Johnson. Anyone could plant one, accidentally or otherwise, as long as the words hit while she was under.
One afternoon, during a break between takes, a grip muttered to a buddy, “Hop to it, will ya? We gotta reset the lights.” Sheree, still lightly tranced from the previous scene, sprang up instantly and began hopping on one foot across the set, arms flapping like a bird. The crew howled with laughter. She kept hopping until Voss snapped her out.
Another time, a frustrated assistant director snapped, “Well, slap me silly if we don’t get this in one more take.” Sheree, standing nearby, delivered a crisp, theatrical slap to her own cheek, then looked around in bewilderment as the set dissolved into hysterics.
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