Lisa Baur may be one of the greatest “one and done” actresses in movie history. She had as small part in “Animal House” but made a lasting impression on pretty much every straight male who saw this iconic movie.
Lisa played Shelly Dubinsky, a sweet and lovely co-ed at Emily Dickinson College, which was the women’s college that Otter and the Delta House guys visited on their infamous road trip. She’s the roommate of Fawn Lebowitz, a girl who has just died in a bizarre kiln accident. Otter tricks her into believing he’s Fran’s fiancé, and then parlays that into a date with Shelly along with three dates with her friends for his Delta friends.
They end up at the Dexter Lake Club, where they run into Otis Day and the Knights. Otter gets Shelly into the back seat of the car, setting up the infamous make-out scene as he takes off Shelly’s sweater. And then of course we have chaos as the Delta gang comes running out of the club.
Call her naïve, or just painfully nice, but Shelly may just be one of the coolest chicks in movie history. She’s the ultimate “girl next door” who falls for a guy she feels sorry for. Even after the evening’s debacle, she still had a thing for Otter as she chatted with her horrified girlfriends on their walk home.
Lisa played this role perfectly, and if you asked any of the guys who saw this movie when it came out, they would have bet almost anything that she was destined for great things in Hollywood. But other than a brief appearance as a beauty pageant contestant on “Charlie’s Angels,” Lisa disappeared from the movie business.
Lisa has notoriously protected her privacy and avoided retrospective interviews about the film. We certainly respect that, but like many fans we would have loved to hear from her over the years. We all hope she’s doing well, and we hope she has fond memories of playing Shelly in “Animal House.”
Movie Clips
Otter asks out Shelly
Here’s the setup and the scene where Otter gets a date for himself and for his friends.