Editing Tuesday Weld (section)

===Early career===
Left in financial difficulty by her husband's death, Weld's mother put Weld to work as a model to support the family. As the young actress told ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' in 1971:
<blockquote>My father's family came from [[Tuxedo Park, New York|Tuxedo Park]], and they offered to take us kids and pay for our education, on the condition that Mama never see us again. Mama was an orphan who had come here from [[London]] but so far as my father's family was concerned, she was strictly from the gutter. I have to give Mama credit—she refused to give us up… So I became the supporter of the family, and I had to take my father's place in many, many ways. I was expected to make up for everything that had ever gone wrong in Mama's life. She became obsessed with me, pouring out her pent-up love—her alleged love—on me, and it's been heavy on my shoulders ever since. Mama still thinks I owe everything to her.<ref name=Moviecrazed /></blockquote>

Weld's mother secured her an agent using her résumé from modeling. She made her acting debut on television at the age of 12, and her [[feature film]] debut that year in a bit role in the 1956 [[Alfred Hitchcock]] crime drama ''[[The Wrong Man]]''.<ref>{{cite book|last=Vickers|first=Graham|title=Chasing Lolita: How Popular Culture Corrupted Nabokov's Little Girl All Over Again|url=https://archive.org/details/chasinglolitahow00vick_950|url-access=limited|publisher=[[Chicago Review Press]]|year=2008|page=[https://archive.org/details/chasinglolitahow00vick_950/page/n120 111]|isbn=9781556529689}}</ref>

In 1956, Weld played the lead in ''[[Rock, Rock, Rock (film)|Rock, Rock, Rock]]'', which featured record promoter [[Alan Freed]] and singers [[Chuck Berry]], [[Frankie Lymon]], and [[Johnny Burnette]]. In the film [[Connie Francis]] performed the vocals for Weld's singing parts.

On TV, she appeared in an episode of ''[[Goodyear Playhouse]]'', "Backwoods Cinderella". She understudied on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] in ''[[The Dark at the Top of the Stairs]]''.

Weld was cast in a supporting role in the [[Paul Newman]]–[[Joanne Woodward]] comedy ''[[Rally Round the Flag, Boys!]]'' (1958), made by [[20th Century Fox]]. At [[Paramount Pictures]], Weld was in ''[[The Five Pennies]]'' (1959), playing the daughter of [[Danny Kaye]], who called Weld "15 going on 27".<ref>{{Cite news|last=Hopper|first=Hedda|date=December 7, 1958|title=A New 'Child Woman' Comes to Fore—Named Tuesday Weld|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|page=F3}}</ref> She guest-starred a number of times on ''[[The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet]]'' (1958–59). She appeared in ''[[77 Sunset Strip]]'' with [[Efrem Zimbalist Jr.]], in the 1959 episode, "Secret Island".