Minx's Progress

The little girls of Roedean, Britain's most exclusive boarding school, were all lined up in their navy blue uniforms awaiting inspection by the Queen Mother. Moving down the line, the Queen Mother stopped before a leggy 13-year-old. As instructed, Sarah Miles curtsied. "Do you like it here at Roedean?'' inquired the Queen Mother graciously. Blurted Sarah: "I hate it," then curtsied again.

Last week rebellious Sarah Miles, now 18, had landed one of the most enviable roles any girl could ever want. She had been picked as Sir Laurence Olivier's leading lady for his new film. Term of Trial, joining a list that includes such distinguished predecessors as Vivien Leigh, Claire Bloom, Marilyn Monroe and Joan Plowright. Appropriately enough, she will play the role of a precocious schoolgirl. In the film, she tries to seduce her schoolmaster (Olivier), is spurned, and retaliates by charging him with assault.

Sticks & Stones. Sarah's real-life precocity was long a marvel to her friends and a burden to her family. She was no early beauty. She had a face shaped like a teardrop and (she says) "ears that flapped like cabbage leaves." At Roedean she followed up her gaffe before the Queen Mother with other capers that ranged from throwing water on the headmistress to mayhem on the playing fields, where she broke the legs of two schoolmates ("but only one seriously--cricket is such a deadly dull game, I took aim at girls llegs"), cracked the collarbone of another during a foot race ("She was getting ahead of me, so I tripped her"). She was asked to leave.

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