A very unacceptable obsessive love drives Humbert Humbert (James Mason) from the moment he sees a sunbathing very young “nymphet” named Dolores “Lolita” Haze (Sue Lyon). Humbert rents a room from her sexually avaricious mother Charlotte (Shelley Winters) to be close to the girl he craves. When Lolita is sent away to camp, her mother demands that Humbert either marry her or leave the house. Not being able to stand parting from the child, he accepts. When she discovers his real love in a diary, she is so distraught she has a fatal car wreck. Humbert takes Lolita from camp on a cross country car trip at first saying her mother is ill but eventually admitting she is dead. They begin a sexual relationship pretending to be father and daughter as cover. A mysterious car follows them, driven by Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers), a playwright whom Lolita admires. When Lolita is ill and hospitalized, Quilty takes her from the hospital and they disappear together. Years after this, Humbert is contacted by a pregnant Lolita, married to someone else and in need of money. She rejects his continued devotion but tells him Quilty abducted her and he leaves to seek revenge.