Susan Elizabeth Strasberg (May 22, 1938 – January 21, 1999) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actress.
Career
After a widely praised performance as a teenager in
PicnicPicnic is a 1955 Cinemascope film in Technicolor which tells the story of an ex-college football star turned drifter who arrives in a small Kansas town on Labor Day and is drawn to a girl who is already spoken for...
, Strasberg originated the title role in the Broadway production of
The Diary of Anne FrankThe Diary of Anne Frank is a stage adaptation of the book The Diary of a Young Girl. The play is a dramatisation by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. It opened at the Cort Theatre, Broadway, on October 5, 1955, in a production by Kermit Bloomgarden, directed by Garson Kanin and designed by Boris...
at the age of 18 and was nominated for a
Tony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Awards, recognize achievement in live American theatre and are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are for Broadway productions and...
. Her stature on the stage was symbolized when
Julie HarrisJulie Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards and three Emmy Awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...
presented to her a handkerchief which
Helen HayesHelen Hayes was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of only ten people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
had used in portraying
Victoria Regina and had presented to Harris to honor her performance in
I Am a CameraI Am a Camera was a 1951 play by John Van Druten, inspired by Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Stories.The play, with a screenplay by John Collier, was filmed, also under the title I Am a Camera with Julie Harris, Laurence Harvey, and Shelley Winters...
. Strasberg also starred in the Italian holocaust film
KapòKapò is an Italian film about the Holocaust directed by Gillo Pontecorvo in 1959. It was nominated for the Academy Award as best foreign film. It was an Italian-French co-production filmed in Yugoslavia.-Plot:...
, which was nominated for an Academy Award as best foreign film of
1960The year 1960 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I...
. She lived in Italy for several years and was delighted to be called "La Strasberg" in the Italian idiom.
Strasberg wrote two best-selling books:
Bittersweet, an autobiography, in which she discussed her tumultuous relationships with actors Richard Burton and Christopher Jones, as well as her daughter's struggles with a serious heart defect, and
Marilyn and Me: sisters, rivals, friends which recounted her relationship with her "surrogate sister,"
Marilyn MonroeMarilyn Monroe , born Norma Jeane Mortenson, but baptized Norma Jeane Baker, was an American actress, singer and model....
, who was a "member" of the Strasberg family for many years.
Personal life
Strasberg, a
Jewish AmericanAmerican Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens or resident aliens of the Jewish faith and/or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
, was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of theatre director and
dramaDrama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...
coach
Lee StrasbergLee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with director Harold Clurman, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective". In 1951, he became director of the non-profit Actors Studio, in New York City, considered "the...
and former actress
Paula StrasbergPaula Miller Strasberg was a former stage actress who became actor/teacher Lee Strasberg's second wife, mother of actors John and Susan Strasberg as well as Marilyn Monroe's acting coach/confidante....
. Her brother,
John StrasbergJohn Strasberg is the son of Lee and Paula Strasberg of the Actors Studio, and brother of actress Susan Strasberg.Over his long career, Strasberg has directed productions of Shakespeare, Ibsen, O'Neill, Odets and Aristophanes...
, is an acting coach. She had a daughter, Jennifer Robin (born March 14, 1966 in Los Angeles), with actor
Christopher JonesWilliam "Billy" Frank Jones, better known as Christopher Jones, is an American character actor, born August 18, 1941 in Jackson, Tennessee....
during a brief marriage. Jones portrayed notorious
outlawAn outlaw or bandit is a person living the lifestyle of outlawry; the word literally means "outside the law".In the common law of England, a "Writ of Outlawry" declared the subject to be "Caput gerat lupinum" , and it followed not only that, since the subject was no longer human, he had no legal...
Jesse JamesJesse Woodson James was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank and train robber from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death...
in the 1965-1966
ABCThe American Broadcasting Company is an American television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. It first broadcast on television in 1948...
television series
The Legend of Jesse JamesThe Legend of Jesse James is a 34-episode western television series starring Christopher Jones in the tile role of notorious outlaw Jesse James which aired on ABC from September 13, 1965, to May 9, 1966...
. Strasberg appeared once on the program as a guest star. She joked in her
autobiographyAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
Bittersweet that her daughter would be the "real Jennifer Jones" as the actress
Jennifer JonesJennifer Jones is an American actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Song of Bernadette .-Early life:...
used a stage name.
Strasberg died in 1999 after a long battle with
breast cancerBreast cancer is a cancer that starts in the breast, usually in the inner lining of the milk ducts or lobules. There are different types of breast cancer, with different stages , aggressiveness, and genetic makeup. With best treatment, 10-year disease-free survival varies from 98% to 10%...
.
Filmography
- The Cobweb
The Cobweb is a MGM film, directed by Vincente Minnelli and based on a novel by William Gibson. The film features an elite cast, revolving around the disturbing psyches of inmates and staff members at a posh psychiatric clinic...
(1955)
- Picnic
Picnic is a 1955 Cinemascope film in Technicolor which tells the story of an ex-college football star turned drifter who arrives in a small Kansas town on Labor Day and is drawn to a girl who is already spoken for...
(1955)
- 1955 Motion Picture Theatre Celebration (1955) (short subject)
- Stage Struck
Stage Struck is a 1958 American drama film directed by Sidney Lumet. The screenplay by Augustus and Ruth Goetz is based on a play by Zoe Akins, which served as the basis for the 1933 film Morning Glory starring Katharine Hepburn....
(1958)
- Kapò
Kapò is an Italian film about the Holocaust directed by Gillo Pontecorvo in 1959. It was nominated for the Academy Award as best foreign film. It was an Italian-French co-production filmed in Yugoslavia.-Plot:...
(1959)
- Scream of Fear (1961)
- The Shortest Day (1962)
- Disorder (1962)
- Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962)
- The High Bright Sun (1964)
- The Trip (1967)
- Psych-Out
Psych-Out is a 1968 feature film about hippies, psychedelic music, and recreational drugs, produced and released by American International Pictures. Originally scripted as The Love Children, the title when tested caused people to think it was about bastards, so Samuel Z...
(1968)
- The Name of the Game Is Kill (1968)
- Chubasco (1968)
- The Brotherhood (1968)
- Sweet Hunters (1969)
- The Sisters (1969)
- The Other Side of the Wind (1972) (unfinished)
- So Evil, My Sister (1974)
- The Legend of Hillbilly John (1974)
- The Stronger (1976) (short subject)
- Sammy Somebody (1976)
- Rollercoaster
Rollercoaster is a summer 1977 disaster-suspense film directed by James Goldstone. It was one of four films created in Sensurround by Universal Studios, along with Midway, Earthquake, and the theatrical version of Battlestar Galactica....
(1977)
- The Manitou
The Manitou is an American horror movie from 1978 with Tony Curtis and Susan Strasberg based on a 1975 book by Graham Masterton.A woman named Karen enters a hospital in San Francisco suffering from a growing tumor on her neck...
(1978)
- In Praise of Older Women
In Praise of Older Women is George Kaczender’s twelfth feature film. It was written by Stephen Vizinczey , Paul Gottlieb and Barrie Wexler...
(1978)
- Acting: Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio (1981) (documentary)
- Bloody Birthday
Bloody Birthday is a 1981 horror film directed by Ed Hunt. It was the first film to be produced by Gerald Olson.-Plot:In 1970, three children are born at the height of a total eclipse. Due to the sun and moon blocking Saturn, which controls emotions, they have become heartless and uncaring, with no...
(1981)
- The Returning (1983)
- Sweet 16 (1983)
- The Delta Force (1986)
- Remembering Marilyn (1987) (documentary)
- Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend (1987) (documentary)
- The Runnin' Kind (1989)
- Prime Suspect (1989)
- Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer was a German-French theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Elsass-Lothringen , at the time in the German Empire...
(1990)
- The Cherry Orchard (1992)
Television
In
The Rockford FilesThe Rockford Files is an American detective television drama originally aired on the NBC television network between September 13, 1974 and January 10, 1980; it has remained in constant syndication to the present day. The show is notable for the quality of its writing, largely from Stephen J...
(1976), Strasberg played Rockford's ex-girlfriend who sets him up in the final episode of Season Two "A Bad Deal in the Valley"
Strasberg appeared in another
Rockford Files in 1974, as well as in episodes of dozens of other popular television series including
BonanzaBonanza is an American television series that ran on NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons, it is among the longest running Western television series and continues to air in syndication....
,
Breaking PointBreaking Point is a medical drama which aired thirty new episodes on ABC from September 16, 1963, to April 27, 1964, continuing in rebroadcasts until September 7. It starred Paul Richards as Dr. McKinley Thompson, a resident in psychiatry at fictitious York Hospital. Eduard Franz co-starred as...
,
Burke's LawBurke's Law is a detective series which ran on ABC from 1963 to 1965 and was revived on CBS in the 1990s. The show starred Gene Barry as Amos Burke, millionaire Los Angeles Chief of Detectives, who was chauffeured around to solve crimes in his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II.-Premise:There were...
,
The Streets of San FranciscoThe Streets of San Francisco is a 1970s television police drama filmed on location in San Francisco, California, USA, and produced by Quinn Martin Productions, with the first season produced in association with Warner Bros...
,
Night GalleryNight Gallery is Rod Serling’s follow-up series to The Twilight Zone that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1973. Serling functioned both as the on-air host of Night Gallery and as a major contributor of scripts, although he did not have the same control of content and tone as he did on The Twilight...
,
McCloudMcCloud is an American television police drama that aired on NBC from 1970 to 1977. The title role was played by Dennis Weaver as Marshal Sam McCloud, a law officer from Taos, New Mexico on semi-permanent "special assignment" with the New York City Police Department.-History:The pilot, "Portrait of...
,
Alias Smith & Jones and
Remington SteeleRemington Steele was an American television series, produced by MTM Enterprises and first broadcast on the NBC network from 1982 to 1987. It starred Stephanie Zimbalist as private detective Laura Holt and Pierce Brosnan as a roguish former white-collar thief and former con man who assumed Remington...
.
External links