Original subtitles

Survivor: Is Earth all right?

Pike: The same old Earth, and you will see it very soon.

Tyler: And you won't believe how fast you can get back.

Well, the time barrier has been broken.

Our new ships can ...

Haskins: This is Vina.

Larry: Susan Oliver's Vina is really kind of iconic.

Aside from Spock's ears and the Talosians' big buttheads,

that was really one of the big pops of alien-ness

that NBC could sell RCA color TVs with.

Susan is kind of like the bright light of that episode.

It was Gene's way of pushing that censorship envelope

as much as he could,

and his Green Girl, Orion slave girl,

is actually one of the personas of Vina,

who was the pivotal guest star character

that Susan Oliver wound up playing.

But then it wound up being just another

unsold pilot on the pile.

And then they reboot the show.

The show is going,

and lo and behold,

they go back and take "The Cage"

when they get under the gun on time schedules

and they get behind

because Star Trek is a massively hard show to do in 1960's.

So they go back and they reuse "The Cage"

and make it the one and only two-parter

of the original series.

It's our "save our ass" moment.

For the producers of the original Star Trek,

they used the one hour,

make it into a two-hour,

and bottom line, here's Susan, and Vina lives.

Hank: When I first put up a website,

this was around '95,

and of all the things I put up then or since,

I think I had more emails from people

about Susan Oliver than any other subject,

so I wasn't the only one who was fixated on her,

who sort of thought,

"My God, she was amazing,"

and there is sort of something very haunting about her.

Mark: "The Menagerie,"

which, for years, was my favorite Star Trek episode,

and probably had a great deal to do

with the fact that she was in it.

Stephen: She wasn't just an iconic Star Trek figure,

which a lot of people are immediately drawn,

"Oh, I know who she is,"

but she was a fine, fine actress.

Hank: What happened?

How did somebody who was that good,

who lit up the screen like that

not have an endless career,

not have the kind of star career

that her star power sort of justified?

Because there really was something

kind of magical about her.

Stephen: And her background, her history,

her whole life is fascinating.

Nina: Her father had remarried,

and he had children,

and the finances were just not there to continue.

And when she first told me

she was going to be an actress,

I thought, "That's interesting," .

That's so different

from what I would have expected

from her very retiring personality.

David: I met Susan

in September 1950.

We were both going to The Neighborhood Playhouse School

of the Theater in New York,

and we worked with Sandy Meisner and Martha Graham.

We had people in class like

Joanne Woodward and Steve McQueen,

Syd Pollack,

a lot of wonderful, wonderful people,

so we got great training.

I thought she was terrific.

She was one of the better ones in class.

James: It was a gang of broke actors,

I mean the typical quintessential story,

wait tables, do this, do what you have to do

until you get noticed and whatever.

Susan: I began spending my time

trying to figure out a stage name

for I couldn't imagine seeing,

"Gable's back, and Gercke's got him!"

on any billboard.

Monte: All of the time she had in New York

in the early days,

that was all great work.

I do remember seeing the earliest "Playhouse 90"

and the earlier New York shows,

and very little that's ever done now,

a live performance or something like that,

and she was a part of all that.

David: She also came to Hollywood,

and we started to date,

and we had wonderful times together.

Susan: I met a man from Warner Bros.,

who said, "Susan, they're casting a small film

"about a girl's reform school called

"'The Green-Eyed Blonde."

"But I have blue eyes."

He said, "That's OK.

"They're shooting in black and white."

Within one week of coming to Hollywood for the first time,

I'd gotten the lead in a film.

Greeneyes: He's all right, isn't he?

He's fat.

He's a lot better off than he was when we got him.

He smiles all the time now.

Margaret: Greeneyes, you can't keep him.

You know that, don't you?

John: And she somehow, miraculously,

was being offered a seven-year

non-exclusive contract by Warner Bros.

Paul Newman and Natalie Wood were under contract to Warner's

and neither one of them

could get a non-exclusive contract.

And Susan had only done this one,

kind of almost a B-grade movie.

Greeneyes: Kiss me, Cliff.

Kiss me so hard we won't even know there's a fence.

John: They did a lot of PR.

There was a lot of things going on about it.

Susan: I was now being written up in Louella Parsons' column

and escorted to big stars' and producers' formal parties

and given publicity buildup at the studios.

David: They were taking pictures and she'd be on top of me,

and she'd be playing with my hair,

and all that stuff for the cameras,

which meant nothing.

Finally, the interview was over,

and she said to me,

"Whew!

"Thank God we're through with that shit!"

She said, "shit!"

And she meant it.

She hated that sort of thing.

And I said, "Well, it's all part of the game.

"The studio wants you to do it."

She didn't like doing all that kind of phony publicity,

which you have to do when you're a young starlet.

Nina: She was then playing the leading role in

"Look Back in Anger,"

because Mary Ure had left the cast,

and Susan took over the part.

Susan: In order to do the play,

I had to allow Warners the right to call me back

with a two-week notice.

They did that now for an opus called

"Up Periscope!" with James Garner.

I read the script and told them nicely,

"Up your periscope!"

Jon: Garner said that "Up Periscope!"

was just another piece of crap that Warner Bros. put him in.

You just had no choice.

You had to do whatever they asked you to do,

and if you didn't, they suspended you without pay

and added the time to the end of your contract.

Lee: She wanted to do theater

and took the chance and broke the contract.

John: No, you don't do that.

Jack Warner, he picks up a telephone,

and it's just like an underground cable

that goes almost to every studio and everybody in Hollywood

that says, "Susan Oliver is taboo."

Jon: By all accounts, not just Garner's,

he was a nasty individual.

Even his brothers couldn't stand him.

He was a vindictive person,

so it wouldn't surprise me if he were somehow involved

in keeping her from working.

David: Whether he did or not,

he probably couldn't have cared less.

He had so many actresses and so many people.

I'm sure she never thought,

"I should never have done it.

"I should never have left."

I'm positive, knowing her.

Kathleen: That sounds like her .

I probably would have done the same thing.

Lee: No, I can see her doing it.

She was strong-willed

and wanted to do theater.

Theater was most important.

Kathleen: Actors like to be in front of an audience.

There's nothing like being in front of an audience.

Thomas: On paper, it probably was good for her,

but professionally for her movie career,

it hurt it.

In the early '60s, you still needed a studio,

and she did have that contract with Warner Bros.,

and I think that was a mistake on her part

if she really wanted to be a movie star.

Warner Bros. was very good about

getting their contract players experience on television

but then also propelling them

to big-time movie roles.

Susan: Maybe I didn't appreciate how rare it was

to get a movie contract

since I had gotten mine so easily.

Maybe I just really didn't feel comfortable

playing the game side of Hollywood.

The studio gave me $8,000 worth of severance.

Soon thereafter, I was asked

to replace an actress on Broadway

in an imported hit, "Patate."

We only lasted a week,

but I received a Theatre World Award for Promising Newcomer

along with Larry Hagman.

At the presentation, I looked up and saw

a small woman beaming and waving.

"Congratulations, dear.

"I only came because of you and Larry."

It was Helen Hayes.

I decided to heal the wounds from the play's closing

and take my Warners money and go blow it all

on a first trip to Europe.

On the return trip from Paris,

Gene Kelly helped me get a seat

on the supposedly full Pan Am Boeing 707.

Michael: She's flying across the Atlantic

at 30,000 feet from Europe to New York,

and the plane suddenly takes a dive down to 3,000 feet.

It was something where the autopilot malfunctioned.

Clay: She said that the captain was crawling on the aisle,

going from,

pulling himself from seat to seat

to get back to the cockpit.

Dick: It leveled off, I guess, at the very last second.

I said, "Boy, that must have been pretty scary.

"What were you thinking

"when you thought you were going to die?"

She said, "Well, I'm ashamed to tell you."

Susan: I remember thinking,

"I can't go now.

"My billing will be lousy."

A headline flashed in front of me,

"Big Commercial Airline Disaster!

"Gene Kelly Killed!"

Then under "Other victims,"

my name listed alphabetically.

Dick: I said, "You're about to die

"and all you're thinking about is your billing?"

and she said, "Yes."

She said, "You must never tell this story to anybody."

Nina: She said,

"Never again will I fly."

Clay: She didn't like flying after that.

And I don't blame her.

Nina: You couldn't very well have a career in the movies

if you didn't fly.

What were you going to do, take a boat?

Susan: California now seemed

where my work and home were to be,

so I gave up the New York apartment.

And my mother also moved out to the West Coast.

Lee: Once you've done theater, a lot of theater,

and a big paying job comes along,

you really can't blame her for coming back to Hollywood

and being here to get in on the money

that was being offered

Thomas: In "The Gene Krupa Story," she played sexy and a vamp.

Dorissa: Why don't we have supper or breakfast or both

and get to like each other?

Gene: There happens to be a girl.

Dorissa: There always is.

Gene: It's her birthday, and we're celebrating it tonight.

Dorissa: Maybe if you called her and asked,

"Pretty please?"

Thomas: In her next movie, "Butterfield 8,"

she's the good girl, jealous that her boyfriend,

Eddie Fisher, has more interest in Elizabeth Taylor,

eliciting sympathy.

Norma: Just for the record, what did happen to your dress?

Gloria: Well, it's a funny thing.

One minute it was there,

the next minute it wasn't.

Norma: Much like your virtue, I presume .

Thomas: She was just so versatile,

and I think for TV,

she was sort of like a chameleon,

and for television, it was perfect.

Jay: Television was really coming into its own

in terms of production values and quality entertainment.

It was really almost as good as the movies that you saw.

Hank: Growing up in the late '50s, early '60s,

watched a lot of television.

I'd recognize the same actor or actress appearing

many times in different episodes,

and Susan Oliver was somebody whom I remember.

Jay: When you saw the name "Susan Oliver" in TV Guide

and you're with your family and you're figuring out

what you're going to watch that night,

you went with a show that she was in

because you knew it was going to be different, good.

Hank: There aren't that many actors I can think of

that we remember so much from guest spots.

Voiceover: Susan Oliver.

Voiceover: Susan Oliver.

Jay: You have Susan Oliver who was almost always

on the first choice list to be the female guest star

in these shows,

and by the nature of it,

she got some of these incredible parts

that are part of pop culture.

Mark: There aren't too many shows you can find

from the late '50s to the mid-'70s

that she didn't appear in at one time or another.

She plays a Russian in "Ben Casey."

She did a "T.H.E. Cat" episode,

"The Outsider," "Johnny Staccato."

Johnny: Your father tried to hire me. I thought that -

Barbara: I know.

He built a cage around me, with a big sign,

"Don't touch!"

and nobody did.

Mark: I mean you could just rattle off

100 different shows and still have more

that you've forgotten.

Stephen: I was absolutely bowled away in "The Lineup."

I thought, "OK, I know her character

in her first two lines,"

and yet you watch the whole progression

of the teleplay,

and good, bad, or indifferent,

she still does a performance.

Lori: Sounds funny coming out of you.

Robert: I hope so.

Lori: What makes you so much better than them, huh?

Robert: I didn't say I was so much better.

Lori: But you think it just the same!

Robert: Come on, you want to fight?

Come on, put them up.

Lori: I don't think I'm going to like you one bit.

John: She was stroking my head

as we were going through lines.

Her phone started ringing,

and I stopped

and looked to where her phone was,

and I said, "Are you going to answer the phone?"

And then she kind of smiled, and she said,

"You know, that's the first time

"I've not answered the telephone."

I was flattered by that.

The telephone would be ringing all the time,

but she'd be answering it all the time,

and she would want to do whatever it was,

and it was all mostly TV.

Leta: It's having people look up to you,

and it's walking down the street,

knowing that nobody is talking about you behind your back.

Clay: What did those Cartwrights do to you anyway?

Leta: They treated me like a lady.

Nina: "The Twilight Zone."

Mark: I remember reading in "The Twilight Zone" book

that Scott Zicree wrote,

if there were Martians,

they certainly wouldn't look like Susan Oliver .

Cathy: Now men look at me,

makes me feel like someone new.

Preacher: I know, I've seen it.

Stephen: She was on "Wagon Train" four times.

Judy: Did you ever see a girl shoot so good?

Flint: Sure.

Judy: But not a pretty girl.

Jay: "Route 66" was a very popular '60s show,

and she did some really good dramatic work there.

Stephen: Susan was in three of those.

She had one of her best parts in one of them.

She played a woman with a split personality

who has a romance with Martin Milner,

and it's this big meaty dramatic role.

Dr. Reisman: What if you had floated away?

Claire: No please.

Dr. Reisman: Where do you suppose you'd have gone?

Catalina?

Honolulu?

Inland?

Claire: I don't know.

Dr. Reisman: Pick a place.

Claire: I don't want to pick a place!

I don't want to float away!

Stephen: She did an early "Ozzie & Harriet" episode.

She played a junkie on "The Nurses."

She was great in that.

Sarah: The key to the fourth floor cabinet.

Lenny: Oh boy!

Sarah: I never used it!

I never touched anything in the hospital!

Lenny, just this once, this last time!

I'm going out of my skull!

Nina: She told me she studied voice

with Maria Callas' teacher.

Lily: Sleep all the night through

Go to sleep

Go to sleep

Close your eyes now and rest

Mark: She played so many different characters.

Eliot: Maxie Schram was killed last night.

Does that mean anything to you?

Roxie: Is that why you dragged me in?

Bums like him get knocked off every day.

I'm busy.

I've got some shopping to do.

Ursula: Are you going to bodyguard me?

Or should I say, "guard my body?"

Bess: I'm the only one who wants to help him!

Josh: Yes, ma'am.

But would you please go home?

Shirley: Waited 'til you got back,

[waited some more for connection],

Man, you flipped out?

You know how long since I've had a fix?

I got to get straight, Harry, like now.

Maria: You have to get out of here before ...

before it's too late.

Linc: It's already too late, Maria

You know it and I know it.

Maria: It, it can't be.

I have to marry Rance.

Stephen: She was on "The Virginian" four times.

Bert: You're the one who married me, honey.

Martha: Maybe that's because I couldn't stand it either.

Kathy: Who is he, Mommy?

Ellen: He is an old friend, Kathy.

Biff: Rawhide.

Rowdy: I guess you'll have to come along with us.

Judy: Who needs you?

Rowdy: We're just trying to help you out.

Judy: Help?

How do you think I got in this mess?

Dick: Hitchcock.

Annabel: Please try to understand.

You've been pretending so long now,

you don't know what,

what's true anymore,

or what isn't.

David: Who are you?

Annabel: You know who I am.

David: Oh, of course, now I know.

You're an imposter, aren't you?

You're one of Gerald's friends.

Peter: People respected her

and then wanted her on the shows

because she could deliver.

Kitty: I'm not impressing you, am I?

Nick: Yes.

Yes, you are.

Peter: She is really one of the most

astounding consistently good actresses

that worked in this business,

and she had a lot of qualities that burst off the screen.

You liked her.

You believed her.

And she held that screen.

When the closeup was here,

she was thinking.

Gary: She wanted to be associated with quality,

and you definitely got that from her persona.

We had wonderful writers

who wrote that light,

those light moments for her,

and she pulled it off because she was a good actress.

Burke: Are you sure you didn't have a man

here with you tonight?

Janet: What for?

Burke: Do you smoke cigars?

Janet: Oh, I must have let it go out in all the excitement.

Oh, what a shame, no matches.

Oh goody.

Burke: Have you been smoking cigars long?

Janet: Only since I gave up pipes .

You see,

Daddy was very fond of pipes and cigars .

Burke: I thought you said you hated Daddy.

Janet: Hate, love, hot, cold .

Gary: She was always looking out through glasses

with those gorgeous eyes.

Even black and white,

there was color in her eye.

Monte: We all had lust in our heart for Susan Oliver.

I mean she was very, very dynamic, powerful,

always good in everything she was doing.

Mark: She did an "Andy Griffith" episode.

Stephen: She played a con artist who sort of seduces

both Andy and the Deputy Barney Fife separately.

She's able to act, but it also

emphasizes her sex appeal, which was considerable.

Jan: And you're a deputy.

I should have guessed from your star.

Deputy Barney Fife: Star?

Oh.

Oh, that.

Say,

it is shaped like a star.

Jan: And you wear it right over your heart, don't you?

Deputy Barney Fife: Uh-hmm.

Mark: She played a great nut job

in several shows, like "The Defenders."

Lawrence: Who yelled at you?

Anna: Daddy!

Daddy yelled at me!

And he, he,

he sent me away!

Mark: I think she was great on "The Fugitive,"

the two-parter.

The story I heard was that it was only supposed to be

a regular one-part episode,

but either the producer or director

just fell in love with her

and made it into a two-parter.

Stephen: It was one of the episodes

that kind of defined that show,

which is now considered one of the best dramas of the '60s,

because she played this tragic blonde

who falls in love with Richard Kimble.

Karen: Stay a few more weeks.

Richard: All right.

A few more weeks.

Karen: Good.

Stephen: She's great in it.

That's her kind of part.

She's left alone looking off sadly, wistfully at the end.

Mark: She was mainly

thought of as a TV actress.

I don't really think her film career took off,

which I don't understand why.

Thomas: "Caretakers" is interesting.

Joan Crawford made sure,

when there were scenes with Diane and Susan,

that she didn't wind up in a two-shot

or a three-shot with them,

and she would stand, according to Diane McBain,

over to the left so the camera was just on her,

or there was Robert Stack with her in the scene,

but she made sure that she was not sharing scenes

with the two pretty blondes.

And if you watch the movie,

there is rarely a scene where

they're all on the same frame.

Lee: And I've heard of actresses

who really didn't want to

want to spend too much time

with someone absolutely gorgeous.

Susan was that,

and she kept that beauty for so long.

Thomas: Susan did sign a contract in '63 with MGM,

but she deserved better than playing second fiddle

to Connie Francis in a musical, "Looking for Love."

John: One feature that Susan did was "Your Cheatin' Heart"

with George Hamilton.

It was a very good part.

Jay: She completely was able to

assume the character as it aged through the film.

That, to me, was like an eye opener.

It was like, "My God, this isn't just one of the

"starlets of the day."

I don't think you could have seen

Tuesday Weld do that maybe,

or Diane McBain or any of the other starlets.

Hank: The point is what I was,

I am and I always will be.

Audrey: You know, that's the one tune of yours

that I am just sick to death of hearing!

Just a poor country boy

dragging your heels all the way!

And when you get to the top,

you act like you sneaked in the back door,

somebody going to throw you out any minute!

Thomas: She gives a fabulous performance,

and the critics took notice of it,

but I don't think it did well.

It was a small picture.

I think that's why she wasn't pushed by MGM.

When she got there in '63, '64,

the top two were Jane Fonda and Yvette Mimieux.

What happened with "Dr. Zhivago" was that

MGM produced it,

David Lean was the director,

and MGM was pushing Jane Fonda first to star in it,

and then MGM started to push Yvette Mimieux for the part.

The problem for Susan was

she should have been mentioned for it,

especially when she was on the contract to the studio

that was making the motion picture.

I think after that, they probably let her go

because MGM started to let their contract players go

by '65 and '66.

Jay: The first Jerry Lewis movie

is I think the first thing I saw her in,

"The Disorderly Orderly."

That was my first, like, "Wow!"

because he always had a beautiful actress as a co-star.

It was not a comedy role.

She was playing a girl with mental problems.

Hank: I don't think it's a great movie.

I don't think it's a great Jerry Lewis movie,

but she's fantastic.

Jerome: "I'm yours if you want me,"

you said that.

Or didn't you?

Susan: Yes, I just said that.

Jerome: You said it because you're grateful.

Susan: Yes, I am grateful now, but

in time, I'll learn to love you because

you're good and you're kind.

It won't be hard to love you.

Jay: America, at that time,

was very much in front of their TV sets in the '60s,

I know, I grew up in that era,

more than going out to the movies.

Gary: Three networks, that was it.

And if you had a fairly popular show,

you could get up there,

where you would have 45, 50% of the audience on that night.

So if you went out the following morning,

everybody had seen it.

Not like today,

there is a lot of selections today.

Stephen: Nowadays,

it's sort of understood that there's a continuity,

and if you're in season one of "ER" playing some character,

then you might turn up again in season eight

playing that character,

so you can't ...

once you've done that, you're done.

But in the '60s, the rule of thumb was

it was really once a year.

You could do a show once a year

and then you come back the next year

playing a different character.

And it was just sort of thought

that audiences wouldn't notice or care.

It wouldn't throw them.

It made sense because these were good actors

and the producers liked to bring them back,

and they wanted to write for them.

"Adventures in Paradise" was on for three seasons,

and she did one every year.

She was on "The Virginian" four times.

So clearly, the producers of these shows thought,

"Oh, this is perfect for Susan,"

or, "I'll look for a script for Susan."

Mark: And apparently,

from everything that I have heard and read,

she was easy to get along with,

easy to work with.

Everything was word of mouth,

and so she stayed very busy.

Stephen: "Peyton Place" was an important show for her

because she was on it for about five months.

Stephen: "Peyton Place" was on four times a week.

It was that popular.

It was television's first primetime soap opera.

Ann: There he was,

way down on the rocks,

and they were all looking at me, and they were,

they were saying, "She did it!

"She did it!

Michael: Ann!

Ann: "She did!"

Stephen: When she was a little kid,

she pushed this kid,

this other kid off a cliff,

and now he's grown up and he's blind.

Allison: I didn't know what to say.

Ann: How could you?

The girl you were so anxious for Chris Webber to meet

turns out to be the monster they all say

caused his blindness.

Stephen: I think most people were really getting into her,

her drama.

Everybody was rather stunned

that she was written out so quickly.

Stephen: And it does not end well for her character.

Timathea: Well, my favorite thing that she's done

is "Star Trek."

Vina: Perhaps they made me out of dreams you've forgotten.

Capt. Pike: What, and dressed you

in the same metal fabric they wear?

Vina: Well, I have to wear something,

don't I?

Larry: Yeah, it is amazing to think

that millions of times around the world,

for all these years,

Susan Oliver's face has been the last thing you saw

when you watched early Star Trek.

And that story about just coming out with the crew there,

I mean it's 1964,

and you don't get to do that kind of thing very often

in '64 television.

And for those guys, in full living color,

to have the green girl just ...

That's hysterical,

talking about her reaction about

they were either leering or afraid to leer.

And she gives it all,

and I know that the final edit

didn't even have all of her dance.

I mean it got a little

not raunchier, by today's standards,

but just a little more animalistic.

And it's fascinating now to learn

that Susan wasn't actually a dancer by trade,

but she was a smart and talented woman,

and a week of choreography gave us

what we see on screen.

Voiceover: "The Invaders" in color.

Roy: "Invaders" was '67, '68,

wherein I met Susan Oliver.

David: Your husband's working for Midlands Academy.

Sooner or later, it could get him killed.

Stacy: Darling, I don't know what this is all about,

but if what he is saying is true, then please stop now.

Roy: The secret of working with good actors

is they make one another better,

more profound.

There is an understanding of the material

that you may have missed,

a nuance,

and she never missed nuance.

And if it wasn't written,

it was in her eyes,

and that's magic.

That's why everyone loves her eyes.

Joan: Oh, Andy.

We used to be friends once, remember?

Roy: Obviously, a beautiful face and a demeanor

that was off-putting.

I knew there was a formidable person there.

Joan: A case without much evidence,

but we have a great deal of outrage

over the death of a beloved senator,

and you want me to help you make that case,

don't you, Andy?

Roy: Quinn Martin hired the best of every department.

Stephen: Quinn Martin always paid top dollar for actors.

He believed in production value.

He did more location shooting

than most shows did at the time.

He liked to use the same actors again

and had really set ideas for who should play

what kind of role.

One way that was important to Susan was that

he had a lot of shows on the air.

Voiceover: A Quinn Martin production.

Gary: I think my attitude would have been with her

that she was in here doing this role.

Now why isn't she doing a series?

Mark: There were very few actresses

who were that prolific

who didn't get a regular series.

Gary: She's beautiful.

She is extremely well equipped.

She's intelligent.

But where is her shot?

Voiceover: Susan Oliver does not believe

that a series spells success

for a young and aspiring actress.

She has turned down no less than three of them.

Susan: I had to do a lot of soul-searching.

What are the reasons for a series?

First, to make money.

Second, to be known.

But it takes you out of the movie and theater arena.

I decided I had plenty of time to do a series later.

Lee: She turned it down.

That is surprising.

Celeste: Being a series regular,

that was not the big deal.

Having that guest starring role, it meant you were a star,

wheras if you were stuck playing one role

on a television series,

you were exactly that.

You were stuck!

Lee: I did a series for seven years, "Barnaby Jones,"

and that took up a lot of my time,

and I wasn't able to do anything else but that.

John: They wanted to offer me a series, "The Aquanauts,"

a bunch of guys underwater.

I didn't want to do just TV.

I wanted to do good movies.

Kathleen: She didn't want to ever be locked into anything.

She didn't want to be controlled.

Celeste: She was in the catbird seat

as being the perfect guest star

that went from show to show to show.

Lee: You could work a short period of time,

get a lot of exposure in television

with just a few days' effort of working.

You could almost do one every other week.

Dick: I don't think I set her for any films

when I represented her.

It was all television.

But she just worked constantly.

When we'd have lunch at a restaurant,

boy, people would walk up to her,

"Can I have your autograph?

"I saw you in this,

"I saw you in that."

I thought she's so recognizable and so well-liked

and so well-respected both within and outside

of the industry

that I thought, "Why didn't anybody ever move her

"onto the big screen?"

Voiceover: Had she taken the TV series,

it would have meant half a million dollars to the agency.

Her agents proceeded to take revenge.

Two directors asked her why she turned down

parts in their movies.

Susan didn't even know about the roles

and would have been quite interested.

Gary: Was there something actually beneath her

that she should have done

that would have given her more notoriety?

Susan: I found myself doing a terrible film

called "The Love-Ins."

I turned it down flat at first,

but the director and James MacArthur,

who was an old friend,

had come to my house bearing flowers and champagne

and promises from the producers that it would be done

with taste and empathy.

David: We all take on things,

and we feel that,

"Well, the script's not very good,

"but I'll make something of the part."

It never works.

It never works.

If the script is not there, forget it.

Forget it.

Thomas: Her LSD freakout scenes is a standout.

The movie is not.

Larry: For your own good, put down the LSD.

John: She's really doing this kind of weird dance,

and her long blonde hair, she's throwing it all over.

I think that was, like, shocking, in a way,

because I didn't see that.

Susan always kept it kind of cool,

the good scout girl,

and that's how she really was,

but that was something sensual and disturbing.

Jay: It was amazing.

And the picture was in color,

and it did have at least good production values.

But I can't remember her looking more beautiful

than she did in that sequence.

Thomas: It's kind of sad, on one hand,

to see that she was reduced to doing that.

On the other hand, she was in her late 30s,

and she was playing a college girl,

and she looked in her early 20s.

Lee: Susan had a lightness to her,

a sweetness that she appeared younger than she was.

Artemus: You're very beautiful.

Triste: That's what they tell me.

Dr. Ferris: The fact that she had to play

those younger roles for so much longer than

one would think would be appropriate

is an indicator of the fact that

there just weren't other roles.

There weren't middle roles for middle-aged women

that she could play.

Susan: The night of our wrap party at MGM,

I went alone to an empty sound stage

and sat there in the dark

and wept over lost dreams and compromised principles.

Thomas: A lot of these, Yvette Mimieux,

Sue Lyon, Carol Lynley,

they were all up for "Bonnie and Clyde."

Their names are mentioned for "Rosemary's Baby,"

"The Graduate."

Susan's name never comes up for those big roles,

and I think it's because

without signing that contract early on

in the early '60s, late '50s,

it did really hurt her.

She's just as talented as those actresses

and should have been considered for those big roles,

but she just didn't have the backing of the studios.

And by the late '60s, with the studio systems collapsing

and her doing a lot of television,

her name meant nothing at the box office.

She headed for TV.

Linda: Thank you.

Clute: [And then I might get to be warden, Kate].

Kate: It takes a fox to be warden.

Pig's too dumb.

Lee: Because she was able to change her persona,

Susan went from one to the other to the other to the other.

Dan: Two men are dead because of you.

Don't you understand that?

Leona: But that was all a mistake!

I never meant for it to work out that way at all.

Blanche: Well, you're something special.

Hannibal: So are you.

Nicola: You're late.

Carter: Late for what?

Ellie: What's love like, Mama?

Virginia: You're asking me?

Ellie: Why, you've been in love, haven't you?

Virginia: Only once.

Mark: She would have hit 40

by the early '70s,

and she still kept working a decent amount

until mid-'70s, I'd say.

Chas. Floyd: There was no denying

when I would watch her work on screen,

either in film or television,

why she was successful as an actress.

Father Samuel: I want to know all about Jeff Carter.

Fran: Everything, I'll tell you everything

I know about him.

Father Samuel: Where did he get his money?

Fran: Except that.

Father Samuel: Oh!

Thomas: She wound up in independent movies

earlier than her counterparts.

Barbara: You were going to shoot him!

Col. Stutz: To keep him from falling into enemy hands!

Max: This is my stop.

Col. Stutz: You're not going anywhere!

You both know too much.

Barbara: Well, you told us!

Stephen: She did have a great canon of work.

Even when the scripts aren't that good,

or even the photography might not be that flattering,

she comes across very good as an actress.

Margaret: Goddamn it, David!

What do you want me to do?

Do you want me to take an aphrodisiac?

Do you want me to get stoned?

Do you want me to walk into your bed under hypnosis?

David: Have I been wallowing in my own self

Margaret: Sinking!

Stephen: Sometimes, they are overlooked

because they're in weak projects.

Isabel: After all, my brother's an attractive man.

Dolores: Carlos must go!

Isabel: But why do you have to make such a big fuss,

just because a poor widow had a-

Carmen: She was a virgin!

Isabel: What?

Stephen: Navarro failed as a director in that

sometimes when you have great actors

and you let them have their way,

they can go over the top.

Susan is almost the only one that is

not giving a performance

but being a character.

She does a wonderful job in that film.

I do remember Patricia telling me

Susan would look at her mother, Ruth,

and "Is this scene,

"Did I do that scene OK?'

She did direct Susan to a certain amount.

Timathea: I wonder if Ruth was jealous of Susan

because Susan was so beautiful and was so talented

and was having all these really amazing opportunities,

and Ruth wanted to have that spotlight on her.

Stephen: Her mother was a very important

Los Angeles, Hollywood astrologist.

Michael: She made most of her money that way.

Timathea: I would think she probably used Susan's fame

to help her business.

Voiceover: Sue Oliver and her mother, Mrs. Oliver,

who is hidden there,

a wonderful woman.

John: Her mother being a major Hollywood astrologer

and in touch with everybody in the industry,

there's nothing wrong for them to be on close contact,

but it did seem a little excessive somehow.

Biff: Her mother was an overwhelming influence

in Susan's life.

Timathea: My family put out my birth announcement

with no date on it

because they didn't want her reading my charts

and setting up my life for me before I had even

had a chance to live it.

And I know that she did this for Susan frequently,

and I've heard a lot of stories about her

from my grandmother, her sister,

which are not necessarily beautiful stories .

Biff: Her looks matched her demeanor,

a shriveled old bag.

I couldn't stand her .

Library Ghost:

Ghostbusters:

David: She was a lovely lady,

and she called me and invited my wife and I over,

and she made her this chart for Alexandra, my daughter,

which was quite good, very interesting.

She was a very clever woman.

Biff: And she adored her mother.

She just worshipped her.

I couldn't believe that,

that this sunshine person would like this cloudy day.

James: The circumstances of Susan's early childhood

with a single mother and strained economic resources

were very unstable,

and they would bounce around from place to place.

Joan: Do you really think I have illusions about her?

That I invented memories that never happened?

Sweet nothings?

Me, walking down the street in a little white frock,

with Momma holding me by the hand?

James: It undoubtedly created a certain bond between them

that I think explains the nature of their relationship.

Timathea: And I think a lot of Susan's self-confidence

or lack of self-confidence

was probably because of the way

that her mom treated her.

Carol: I don't feel very lovely, Vera.

I just had a session with Mother.

Timathea: I was at her home down here in Los Angeles

in the living room, in the dark,

in a dark corner,

and Ruth walked in to the kitchen.

And Susan motioned for me to be quiet,

Ursula: Don't make a sound!

Timathea: And they just kind of talked across the room,

and then Ruth went up to go to sleep,

and then Susan continued the conversation with me.

Biff: You can't control your daughter

unless you live there.

I mean no, she was ...

omnipresent.

Mike: When I was over the house a few times,

she'd come in there, and I mean

she'd sit down in the conversation,

and I mean took it over.

I didn't even come over to see her.

Ron: When they clashed,

they clashed.

Timathea: I do remember Susan being very angry

of Ruth taking over certain parts of her life

and really stepping in places

that she should not have been stepping in.

Michael: To give you a feel for the thing,

Susan had some gold stock,

and her mother sold it.

And when Susan found out about it,

she was just incensed.

Ann: I want to know the reasons, all the reasons,

Mother.

Biff: So steering Susan's life away from,

I don't know,

romance and goddamn fun!

Nancy: Somewhere along the line,

a mutual friend said,

"You know, Susan's a pilot."

And I said, "A pilot?

"What do you mean a pilot?

"You mean like flying, a pilot?"

And she said, "Yeah.

"She's quite amazing."

Voiceover: A high-flying TV and film actress,

Susan Oliver makes final preparations

for a daring light plane solo flight to Moscow.

Peter: Oh my God!

I never knew that.

Roy: A treacherous trip crossing the Atlantic in the North.

Lee: Wow!

Peter: How brave!

Susan: In 1964, an old friend,

Hal Fishman, called.

He'd just gotten his private pilot's license.

Clay: Hal was a fabulous guy,

and he really liked Susan.

Susan: I found myself at Santa Monica Airport

in front of my first light plane.

I literally threw myself prone in front of it, crying.

Hal stuffed me in the right seat.

I clenched the arms of the seat, galvanized.

We took off.

It was beautiful.

The next day, I drove out to the airport

and plunked down my $625 for the complete course

leading to private pilot.

Nina: She went to a hypnotist about her fear of flying,

and

it's my personal feeling

that she was really over-hypnotized

because not only did she no longer have that fear,

but she felt she had to fly.

Clay: She was a good pilot.

She caught on real quick.

I mean she didn't toot her own horn too much.

She just tried to do it.

And I believe that if she could have traded

her acting career to being a professional pilot,

she might have made the switch.

James: The flying community is pretty tight,

so there was a lot of reinforcement

when you did these things

and a lot of encouragement.

Skip: As opposed to acting, which was kind of

clawing and tough.

Michael: I often wondered whether

when the acting roles didn't come in,

the really good ones,

that she just naturally went to where she found herself

having more fun and more challenges.

Susan: I came across an article

about a dashing Czechoslovakian

who was an ace pilot as well as having won air races

and done competition aerobatics.

He was also a champion hydroplane racer.

His name was Mira John Slovak.

The photo showed he had dark good looks.

Clay: I really liked Mira because he ...

He's done some crazy damn things.

Susan: In 1953, he defected to the West

by hijacking a Czech Airlines C-47 Dakota.

He and three friends knocked out the pilot

and locked the cockpit door.

I thought I'd like to meet the man.

Preparation for the 1966 Reno Celebrity Air Race

became a good excuse to do that.

Mira: And then I got a call, and I called her,

she called me, and we got together.

Susan: As for the 400-mile cross-country

Celebrity Air Race,

James Franciscus came in first,

with me next by only a couple of seconds.

I had been in the lead most of the way,

but my partner gave me a wrong heading near the end.

He apologized profusely, but I didn't mind.

I was still of the school that held a man should win.

Mira: It was very unusual because she kind of really

devoted herself to flying,

which, from my point of view, I admire her for it.

Michael: They were buddies because of the flying,

but there's more to the relationship

than just flying.

Mira: Being with her,

we always had nothing but lots of laughs.

Hal suggested, "Why don't you go to Moscow

"for the film festival?"

and even added, "Why don't you fly there?"

And she came to me and she said,

"Would you mind to help me?"

I said, "I have flown Atlantic before,

"so I'm more than happy.

"But we're going to do it one way.

"It's going to be my way."

Susan: He is a severe, almost angry task master.

Absolutely no girlish excuses or tears are allowed.

Mira: I flew with her from Houston to Los Angeles

in a thunderstorm,

and she want to keep going.

I said, "Susan, there is no way,

"no way we're going go through the thunderstorm."

So that gave me indication

she was so anxious to do it

that her safety and common sense

have been pushed on the side.

Who was pushing?

If the company was pushing who sponsored her

or if she was pushing,

probably she.

"I want to do it, I want to do it,"

because she was a very determined lady.

Dr. Caldwell: I hope she wasn't

pushed into flying across the Atlantic

for Rockwell or to impress her boyfriend.

Michael: And they weren't really particularly

interested in helping her do the job,

just as long as they could get her out there

on the Atlantic,

and then whatever happened would be news.

Mira: It was a wrong time, wrong dates to fly Atlantic,

beginning of wintertime.

If she had a problem, if she went down,

in these days, Atlantic is mean.

Michael: You can't survive in the North Atlantic water

for more than 54 seconds.

Mira: Many, many people never made the Atlantic.

And when they said that she is ready,

I said, "No, she is not ready."

Michael: Coming from a Navy background

where safety was paramount

and then seeing what she was going to go through

as a novice kind of panicked me.

Mira: She had the touch, she had the feelings for it,

but she didn't have any experience,

and Atlantic takes lots of experience.

Michael: Anyone working with Susan at the time

could have been so upset by her trying to do this

with the lack of experience she had.

If they cared about it,

they would be trying to tell her not to do it.

And if she was just going to go ahead and do it,

they would just say, "I can't deal with it anymore,"

and walk away from it.

Susan: There is a new mix-up regarding the departure date

because of the Russians.

I call Mira to tell him.

"I have to come East now," I plead.

"Then I wash my hands of the whole thing!" he shouts.

"Go kill yourself by yourself!"

He slams the phone down.

Those are his last words.

Mira: I must have hurt her feeling,

but I wouldn't have the conscience

to say, "Go ahead."

Michael: I could see she was really distressed,

maybe, "Why am I doing this?" kind of thing,

"but I can't get out of it.

"Too much is in motion already."

Voiceover: It's her first trip of any length over water.

She'll make seven stops between New York

and the Russian capital

while attempting to set speed records.

Susan: I was functioning in a sort of fog,

compounded by my eagerness to be off.

The media people were there too, waiting in the rain.

Lots of goodbyes and good lucks.

I let the engine warm

then turned and waved to the group in the rain

and taxied slowly away,

moving towards my appointment with Destiny.

Michael: The thing about the flight that stunned me

was her approach into Greenland

and how she was committed to go in there in the fog

and there was no other option.

She had to do it.

Dr. Caldwell: She could see the wrecks of

three or four other airplanes that had crashed there.

One of them had crashed just only a few weeks,

I think, before she flew in there.

Michael: And the mere fact that she could do that

showed me this woman had nerves of steel.

Dr. Caldwell: To get out, she had to take off

and then make a circling climb,

stay within the walls of that , not hit those,

and then go up through that overcast.

Susan: There is such absolute reality here.

No clanging civilization, no Hollywood,

no background music or script to save you,

no discordant or phony relationships,

only yourself and your own challenge.

Dr. Caldwell: Coming into Scotland, she iced up

and she was losing altitude because the plane

was loaded up with ice.

Fortunately, she got into warmer air.

Ray: And she had to land in Denmark

because the Russians refused her airspace.

Susan: All I want to do is fly my little plane

and get away from the hocus-pocus

of either Hollywood or politics.

I just want to be left alone to be,

to be free,

even to feel stupid,

which is how I feel now.

Arriving at JFK in New York,

I again meet some press.

Only this time, it's just one photographer

for I have not arrived in triumph.

He keeps insisting I hike up my skirt higher above my knees.

Did they ever ask Lindbergh to bare his biceps?

Monte: I talked to her shortly

after she didn't make it to Moscow,

I had read it in the paper,

and I had located her and called her, got somehow in,

and she was heartbroken about that.

But she was tough.

Meredith: Anyone that would break world's records

and fly solo halfway around the world

has got to be independent

in some of the other things that you've done.

And yet you say that you actually took up flying

and made this course for a man,

who then, when you get back,

turns out not to be there or not to be a part of your life.

Susan: I thought he'd just be proud of me, but he wasn't.

Mira: I cannot say .

No, that would be a wrong thing to say.

I would say we disagree

and probably she was a hothead and I was a hothead,

and we clashed.

Ron: We were drinking from a bottle of wine .

And then she said, "Yeah, that asshole broke my heart."

Mira: I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

I just disagree.

And why she didn't let it go, I have no slightest idea.

Jean: Boy, do I have lousy luck with my men.

Ron: That was the last time

she was going to have anything to do,

she basically said,

to do with men.

Jay: I've seen so much writing on the Internet

everybody asking because she never got married

what her preference was.

My experience was that every time I saw her,

she was with a man.

David: I don't think she was gay at all.

I think she was very heterosexual.

Michael: She got to know a lot of baseball players.

I think she even dated Mickey Mantle,

and she dated other people.

Rev. Rosey Grier: I asked her could I take her,

buy her a hotdog or hamburger.

To my amazement, she said yes .

This was a time when

blacks and whites didn't mingle that much.

She had no problem with mingling with anybody.

She was just a wonderful woman.

Biff: It was about 1:30 in the morning and

I just decided to knock on her front door.

She said, "Yeah?"

And I said, "I want to sleep with you."

She said, "What?"

I said, "No, I'm serious.

"I just want to be able to say,

"I slept with Susan Oliver.

"We don't have to have sex.

"I just want to sleep with you."

So she said, "Come on in."

Michael: The first time we visited her

at her house in Laurel Canyon,

she surprised us by saying she had a friend

that was coming to visit and take us out,

and this young gorgeous man came up

and put us in his Bentley and drove off,

and it was George Hamilton.

Dick: I met Kathy and then we later became married,

and Susan was the maid of honor at our wedding.

She showed up with Sandy Koufax,

and it was kind of distracting

because of all the people that were at the wedding,

Robert Stack and Carolyn Jones and Aaron Spelling,

the person who got the most attention

was Sandy Koufax.

Michael: The relationship with Sandy Koufax

was far more serious than any of the others that she had

as far as we know.

Susan: A love story, oh goody!

Does it have a happy ending, Doctor?

Dr. Davenport: I don't know.

It isn't over yet.

Nina: She told me something about

her not being Jewish being a big negative

in his eyes.

Ron: I don't think it had anything to do

with her not being Jewish.

I think it's Susan being Susan.

Janet: I'm sorry I'm late, Captain,

but you can't have lunch and break your engagement

all in a half hour.

Ron: She didn't want to be your little flower.

She was her own flower.

Judy: I'm not most ladies.

Gil: I agree, I agree.

Ron: The way she brushed it off was, "That macho guy."

Paul: I told you I can't stand a smart aleck broad.

Ron: Because no matter what a guy can call himself to be,

"Oh, I'm for women's lib,"

Susan would have tested him on it.

Cowboy: You're a wild one.

Cathy:

Ron: It wasn't like she didn't want to get married

and not have children.

She just couldn't find the right person.

And to be honest with you,

I don't think there weren't too many right people back then.

James: She had plenty of opportunities to marry,

plenty of proposers,

and no one met whatever standard,

perhaps an impossible standard

that she evaluated them by.

Dick: I think you have the makings of a pretty good wife.

Why don't you want to get married?

Judy: Maybe I've seen too many married men and women.

Michael: Susan may have had the feeling that

she didn't want something that stand in the way

of her acting career, like marriage.

But I believe, and my mom believes,

that she really wanted to get married.

Jan: What's wrong with getting married

and having your career?

Libby: You can't have both.

Michael: Maybe it was her acting career,

maybe it was her mother.

Timathea: I think the reason

that she never ended up marrying

was because her mom talked her out of it.

Mira: She was a very quiet lady.

She was very pleasant, everything else,

but I think that an airline pilot

was not good enough for Susan,

that's what I thought.

Timathea: That either the guy wasn't good enough

or something Ruth would do to make Susan feel like

the relationship was not going to be in her best interests.

Susan: I called Mira and said,

"I thought we could get together and at least say hello."

He said icily, "Can't you understand?

"I don't want to see you again!"

and slammed down the phone.

I sobbed some and drank some

and then did both at the same time.

All the pretty pop songs of my childhood

had promised happily ever after.

Somehow I got myself to Universal,

where I met with a producer and director

of Darren McGavin's new series, "The Outsider."

In wardrobe, as they fitted me for a bikini,

I was painfully aware of the ribs

on my now 90-pound frame.

Diane: You're lonely.

David: No.

I'm alone.

There's a difference.

Diane: There's no difference, David.

I know.

You're alone, you're lonely.

Voiceover: Shame on Hollywood for not giving Susan Oliver,

one of their own,

the recognition she deserves for her brave flight.

This is a town where they pay many tributes

to dubious achievements of negligible worth,

but did they honor her?

No.

Not even with a sandwich named after her

at Junior's Delicatessen.

Nina: And I think that she may have even enjoyed

being with people

like herself who loved to fly

more than some of the people that she was working with

in Hollywood.

Michael: She was one of the first women

to fly the Learjet, I believe.

Clay: Susan was very interested in the Lear,

and I think Bill Lear wanted her to fly it.

Michael: I know that she's been up with Air Force pilots.

Anytime Susan could get her hands

on any airplane or flight simulator,

she was there.

Nina: She won five world records in flying light planes.

Margaret: And I was always amazed

that she could have as demanding a career

as acting and still be such an accomplished pilot.

I had tried desperately to get a sponsor for the air race,

called on Maidenform Bra ,

on a lot of companies who I thought might

be good choices for the editorial publicity.

Then I thought, "Aha!

"I think I'll find Susan Oliver

"and see if she would consider going."

Well, not only did she want to go,

she said, "Oh, I can get us a sponsor."

She made one phone call and boom, we had Virginia Slims.

Clay: She and Susan were a good team,

a very good team because they were both serious.

Margaret: It was a cross-country air race for women only.

Her mother did, at certain times, tell her not to fly.

Clay: Because of astrology or something,

there are certain days that maybe she shouldn't go flying.

Margaret: That bothered me a lot in the beginning.

I thought, "Oh my goodness.

"What are we going to do if I think the winds are right

"and we need to go now?"

But it turned out it was no problem.

She was very good.

It was extremely important that you had a partner

who was totally accurate with their pinpointing navigation,

and I enjoyed her.

She was quite a person.

Michael: When she won the Powder Puff Derby,

she went on to The Tonight Show with her trophy

and showed it,

and it was obvious that Johnny Carson

was not impressed with the Powder Puff Derby or the trophy.

I felt it was very unfortunate for her

that she even was put in that situation.

Susan: I'd flown conventional aircraft,

even across the Atlantic.

But now, this 60-mile jaunt in a soaring machine

suddenly worried me.

Dr. Caldwell: She was an excellent pilot

and a very quick study on the Glider.

Susan: Remarkable, really.

I mean for an engine pilot,

it's incredible.

Instructor: OK, now-

Susan: Wow.

Whoo!

Instructor: When we work these things,

there are several things-

Dr. Caldwell: She really just expressed the feeling

that you would get the first time you have the controls

all by yourself when you're alone in the Glider.

It really wasn't acting when she was flying

because I think she really did enjoy that.

I know she had a lot of fun while she was out there.

Clay: She didn't have a real happy life, I don't think.

Like all of us, I think a lot of people

aren't real, real happy,

but you get happy by doing something you enjoy,

and I think flying made her happy.

Susan: I found soaring to be a kind of

miraculous wedding of freedom and discipline.

It was kind of like a Bach concerto.

There is a rigid form to it,

and yet within that strict form,

there breathes a passion and a beauty.

Clay: She asked me if she could go

with me on an airline commercial,

and I took her one time,

and boy, she loved that,

seeing that big airplane real close to us all the time.

I remember her saying something about,

"I really enjoy this movie work" .

Stephen: I think she had such eclectic desires

where she wanted to go with her life

that sometimes right when good things

were about to happen in her career,

she would walk away from it.

And I find this with a lot of creative individuals,

people who are very, very good in what they do.

Sometimes they don't look at the whole picture,

and they do sabotage their work by walking away

or changing direction.

Charlie: Other things become more important to you than me!

Your social work, your political causes,

activities!

Stephen: She wanted to do more

than what was offered.

Paula: You're right.

It isn't much fun for me.

I want ...

Mike: What?

What do you want?

Paula: More.

Stephen: It's very difficult for a woman even today

to work outside of acting.

Susan: I'm Susan Oliver,

and I like being a woman,

but enough is enough!

Women, since the beginning of civilization,

have been thought of as passive, fragile,

the weaker of the sexes.

Nancy: If you're a woman in the 20th century

or the 21st century,

you don't have a lot of areas where you can

have your ego expand.

Susan: The first thing to do to overcome these fears

is to understand ourselves, our interests,

our capabilities.

Find out what we really want to do

and then set out to do it.

Chas. Floyd: I think she didn't really put

any limitations on who she was.

I really don't think she did that.

I think it was like if it's there and I want to try it,

why not?

Jay: It would be perfectly OK for men

to go into directing,

like so many of them have, like Clint Eastwood,

Robert Redford,

but women, it would be considered, like,

"Yeah, right."

Gary: For a woman to direct a film

would be like a woman playing professional football.

That's how bad it was.

Bill: All right, Betty, would you continue now with Ruth?

Betty: As a child, my daughter wanted to be ...

Ruth: A Marine.

Stephen: She must have been tired of being given

the same roles over and over again.

Monte: For guys, the roles are there.

You're always working.

Always, you're working.

And for women,

"Yeah, I'm always doing the same damn thing."

Nancy: My intelligence was far beyond

what I was getting to say,

and it was harder and harder to make,

"Here's your coffee, honey,"

sound like something out of Ibsen.

Stephen: That's the point where you sort of hit,

hit the career point and you think,

"What am I going to do now?"

Because I may have been making a good living

as an actress at 30,

but now when I'm 40 going on 45,

you might want to have a backup plan,

even if you're one of the top actors.

Monte: An actor hasn't a lot of control,

and I said, "Directing, it seems like

"you would have a better shot at it,"

and she said, "I'm working on that."

Ron: She was changing.

She no longer wanted to be recognized

as that blue-eyed blonde

that everybody can fall in love with.

"I want to be recognized as an intelligent human being."

She wanted to direct.

She wanted to write.

Chas. Floyd: She was almost a maverick

in terms of wanting to do that at that time.

They weren't a lot of women directors.

Gary: I don't think I ever worked with a woman director.

David: Did I ever work for a woman director?

Peter: Rare.

Nancy: No, it never occurred to me

that a woman could direct.

Never.

I mean we just always visually saw men.

Susan: When I'm told a woman can't do something,

I must prove them wrong.

Gary: Most actors are really highly creative people,

and the acting part never fulfills that.

I don't care who you are.

Why Brando ended up being a wacko, I think,

because I think he was a creative person,

but you're not creating up on that screen.

You're a performer.

And when you're an artist,

you get to do art whenever you want.

I can go over there and finish my painting

or start a new one.

I can do it tonight if I want.

I can't do that as an actor.

I got to wait on a whole series of people.

I got to wait on an agent,

and I got to wait on the lawyer,

and then I got to wait on the producer,

and then I got to wait on the studio.

Timathea: The directing was what

she was really excited about

because I think she had a creative vision

for where she wanted to take things,

and she would get very excited about her projects.

I can remember when I visited her

seeing boxes filled with notes and ...

Jan: Tables had books and papers and objects,

and obviously, she was a person just involved

in many, many, many things.

Biff: She told me that she had signed up

for that woman directorship program at AFI,

and I said, "That's wonderful.

"It's about time, Susan."

She said, "Yes, it is.

"I just hope it's time now."

Jan: It was very hard to get a whole crew together

and make the calling card that they could show

a potential backer or studio that they had directing talent.

Ron: She was saying,

"What do you think about me having a Japanese cowboy?"

First, I told her, I said,

"You're out of your mind, but it can work" .

Biff: And then she asked me to be in this production.

I was so flattered,

especially with the cast,

with Will and Woody and Ted.

Kathleen: We knew so many people

that we would get them involved,

and we did.

Everybody had somebody or two somebodies in their film.

Tom: Will Sampson,

this guy was just larger than life.

He had been in "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest."

Ted Cassidy was on "The Addams Family."

Heroine/Wife: Get me down!

Get me down, please!

Baddie: Sorry, ma'am.

Heroine/Wife: Help, help!

Ron: So she was offbeat with her little things, you know.

Like back then, people would go,

"Whoa!

"What the heck is this?"

But you look at it today,

it fits in.

She was definitely in charge,

there is no mistake about that.

And when she finished it,

she was proud.

Chas. Floyd: I admired her so for wanting to do it

and getting it done

and adding one more notch on the belt in her resume.

That was just who Susan was.

Susan: I think what counts is taking charge of your life.

I know who I am, what I am, and where I'm going,

and I love it.

Ron: She had agents that would beg her,

"Take this.

"Maybe you can get in and get a directing job."

That was a lot of money back then,

to be a guest star.

And she'll go, "I don't want that."

That takes a lot of guts.

She started taking roles that were worthwhile.

Snookie: Yeah, I'll do it.

Paul: Snooki:

Paul: Thanks, doll!

That's my girl!

Susan: My agent said that there was this part

on a daytime show,

and I said, "Thanks but no, thanks."

Next thing I knew,

I was over at NBC under those hot lights and explaining,

"I just came by to see what daytime is all about, folks,

"but I'm not here to stay."

David: Early on in my career, I said

"I would never do a soap.

"A soap?

Are you kidding?"

Lee: Oh !

Soap opera then, "Oh, soap opera."

Voiceover: "Days of Our Lives"

added a touch of class this fall

with the appearance of Susan Oliver

as psychiatrist Dr. Laura Horton.

Exactly 134 actresses were up for the part,

but they were no match for Susan.

David: You're at a certain age,

and you know that you can handle it

because of your theater experience.

Lee: It's a phenomenal challenge

that every actor should have to face at least once.

Voiceover: Susan Oliver has asked for and received

her release from her continuing role in NBC's

"Days of Our Lives" in order to spend full time

on the motion picture property, "Yellow Bird,"

which she has developed.

She will also produce and star in the film.

Susan: I want to make films.

Do you realize that in my 18 years in the business,

I've never worked with a woman director?

When I went to the Cannes Film Festival last summer,

I used the money from selling my plane

to buy the rights to a novel.

And now I'm writing the screenplay myself.

Ron: They probably just wanted her to sit on the wayside

and just take producing credits while they hire a writer,

get a director.

I think that's what happened.

She withdrew the project

because I know she still had the rights.

Skip: I remember her talking about that,

that try as hard as she could,

there was really nobody.

There were no openings.

Michael: Susan had a lot of financial obligations.

She invested well.

She had a lot of real estate.

Ron: When I met her, she had nine properties,

and she was renting the houses out,

and she was doing the work herself.

Biff: When I rented a cottage, a guest house,

this was in the front of her mansion

up the circular brick drive.

It was across a little bridge,

and there was a creek that ran through Laurel Canyon.

I was impressed by the estate.

Ron: She started trusting real estate partners,

people that I wouldn't trust,

and she signed contracts,

and it was very sad.

I remember one day she called and she said,

"I lost practically all of my houses."

James: It was almost day-to-day, hand-to-hand,

kind of hand-to-mouth kind of stuff.

Ron: She was living off of the house.

Biff: But I heard about the bridge washing away.

It was a sturdy bridge .

Ron: You couldn't take the car across.

It was dangerous.

But she finally scrapped some cash and got it rebuilt.

Timathea: It felt as if things were falling apart,

and I know she did mention something about the fact

that it was really expensive to keep it warm,

so that's why it was colder.

Ron: Then as the roofs started leaking ...

Chas. Floyd: I never saw those problems.

She was able to listen to me,

and we'd talk and exchange,

and I always felt like she didn't have

a problem in the world.

Ron: She was too proud to say, "I need help."

She was struggling like basically any other actor out there.

Claire: All you have to do is talk Barney

into giving Bo a job, and he'll get it.

What?

You will?

Oh, that's terrific!

Thank you, honey!

You won't be sorry!

Thomas: I'm probably one of the few people

who really liked that , "Hardly Working."

I saw it in the theater.

It was really nice to see Susan get top billing

in a movie that got real theatrical release.

Like I said, for 1980, you couldn't find

Carol Lynley or Diane McBain in a movie

that was theatrically released.

And I was surprised how funny Susan was.

Ron: Every once in a while, she goes,

"Oh, I got to do this stupid show.

"Don't watch it."

Kay: I'm one of the rich kids on the block .

And I'd swap it all for a pair of warm feet on a cold night.

Ned: Well, have you tried the Yellow Pages?

Celeste: There is an amazing idea

that people have about having been an actor.

They think that you have made a fortune

and you're set for life.

Charles: There used to be a bar called "Residuals,"

and the walls were papered with residual checks

that people brought in,

which were checks for maybe 89 cents or $1.53

or that sort of thing.

Well, I see quite a few of those .

Nancy: Seventeen cents for the last show .

Roy: The ATM at my bank just rejected

a residual check for eight cents.

Lee: No residuals.

For a year, I think we got something,

but since then, nothing.

David: You hardly got money doing a series in those days.

And I think it changed around in the '70s.

It started going.

And then the stars were making massive sums.

I wish I had waited 10 years.

Celeste: There were no residuals

that come to me from Star Trek.

I'm the Star Trek Barbie.

Did I make a penny?

Gary: We made a living,

and making a living means you get your paycheck,

you spend your paycheck, get a house.

Instead of living way out in the Valley,

you live maybe in Westwood.

Instead of a used car, you had maybe a new car.

That was it.

Ron: People thought she was getting all those residuals,

but she wasn't getting anything.

Susan: Most women who work have no choice.

They need the income.

Secretary: I want to have a successful career,

but I know it will be tough.

There is so much male chauvinism to wade through.

Stephen: In the '80s, I'm sure she faced

a bit of opposition

wanting and becoming a director.

Ron: As liberal as Hollywood may seem to be,

it's a business and it's not as liberal as it seems.

Nancy: If you look at the group

that have come out of AFI,

they do wonderful first films,

and ...

Kathleen: it was very hard to get a job

even with these films.

That was the time.

Ron: Even a woman of her stature and her name,

for it to take that long,

you would think she would have been directing sooner.

Stephen: The MASH episode, I think, is terrific.

Ron: It was a really nice episode.

It was Susan.

It had her stamp on it.

Kellye: Sshhh.

It's OK.

I'm here.

Sandler: Sarah?

Kellye: Yeah.

It's, it's Sarah.

Sandler: I'm scared.

Don't leave.

Kellye: It's OK.

I'm here.

I'm not going anywhere.

Sandler: I feel awful.

Kellye: Don't think about that.

Just think about the good stuff,

like all the things we'll do when you get better.

We could have a picnic maybe.

Sandler: No, not your fried chicken.

It's horrible.

Stephen: She directed a MASH.

That was a very prestigious show.

That should have given her clout and credibility

far and above and beyond

a lot of wannabes.

Nancy: You can sometimes get a first one,

but the second one is the toughest.

Roy: Even today, 2013,

there are very few female directors,

unless they're independents who finally

get something done on their own.

Monte: Women in film, in a production, are at 28%.

That's the highest it's ever been.

I said, well, that's executive producers, producers, writers

but damn few directors.

Laurie: I think last year,

it was only five percent of feature films

were directed by women,

and it's shocking.

Drew Ann: People not wanting to take risks to begin with,

which perpetuates a situation that already exists

and will not change, in my mind,

unless people go out of their way to make a change.

Nancy: We have all these actresses,

Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock

and all these other actresses,

Laura Linney,

who get up when they're getting awards and say,

"This is shocking and terrible

"that there are no women directors."

I haven't seen them go out and say,

"I'm not going to do this movie

"unless you hire a woman director."

Charles: Before Susan,

whether or not I was ever directed by a woman,

I honestly can't remember,

so that probably means no.

Lance: You remember my mother, Margaret Havenhurst?

Dr. Stanley Riverside: Mrs. Havenhurst!

Of course, my goodness!

Are our gallstones acting up again?

Margaret: Frankly, they've never stopped.

Dr. Stanley Riverside: Well, we haven't recommended

surgery for some time.

You're staying right here and getting this thing over with.

Now that is a very smart young boy you have there,

Mrs. Havenhurst.

Come along.

We'll take a look at you.

Charles: It seemed that the crew

was not particularly happy,

and in some cases,

maybe even a little derisive of what she was doing

or what she seemed to know

or what she seemed not to know,

and that's pretty lethal

for a director to have a crew feeling that way.

Drew Ann: People have these stereotypes

of the way someone is supposed to be on a set

and they're supposed to behave.

And if you're outside of that stereotype,

then you're not doing the job

the way you're supposed to do it.

Charles: One of the producers,

I think it was Don Brinkley,

indicated that he thought

the crew had treated her badly.

Laurie: It would be very easy for the crew

to sabotage what you're doing.

It can happen from the crew being very slow

and they're telling you,

"Well, we can't really move the camera,"

or not giving you a heads up

about something that you should know.

Jay: As far as working with actors,

she was fantastic,

very gracious.

A lot of directors ignore the actors,

particularly at my level, the day players.

Stephen: Pernell Roberts,

fine actor, give him that credit,

but not only from one but many sources,

he was a difficult man.

Jay: Shirley Hemphill,

she had come from a sitcom background,

and I heard that Pernell Roberts was in fact

brutal to her,

criticizing her for her unprofessional behavior

and lack of knowledge about how to act on film.

You can imagine Susan Oliver standing in the middle of that.

She has her lead, for Christ's sakes,

who is supposed to carry the show,

and that dynamic is happening.

How does she handle it?

What I heard was that the producers were not happy

with the end result of the show,

and they felt that she didn't understand

the movement of the camera.

Charles: I think that's bogus probably,

the idea that she didn't know how to use a camera.

That was not an adventurous show, camera-wise.

It was a very old-fashioned show.

It was somewhat stodgy or staid,

I think you could call it.

Drew Ann: I don't buy that for a second.

I worked with male directors on television shows

who were just completely clueless

and the shows came out fine.

Charles: In the fifth year,

which is when she came and did the episode,

the style was completely set,

and it would be really hard for somebody

to ruin that style

or to interfere with it.

David: When new directors come on,

the director of photography is always a big help,

unless he is a bastard.

Nancy: I had a relationship with the cameramen,

and I'd say, "Look, I don't know how to do this.

"You're the man.

"You tell me how to do this."

And I said, "We'll work together on this."

"Oh, how wonderful."

They would be thrilled then because they were

being so generous with their knowledge and so helpful.

Charles: I could see Nancy surmounting

obstacles that maybe Susan couldn't

because I know Susan had her strengths

certainly as a human being,

but it seems to me that she had her vulnerabilities too

and maybe she wasn't able to fight that kind of fight.

Stephen: She wasn't pushy.

Ron: She didn't know how to defend herself

against a pack of wolves.

Chas. Floyd: If they don't want you there

and if they are not particularly welcoming,

they don't necessarily lend helping hands.

Charles: I suspect,

I suspect,

that our crew just wasn't ready,

wasn't ready for a female director at that time.

Laurie: As a director, you are the guest on the show.

Everyone else does it for six months a year

year after year.

As a director, you're on for 10 days.

Drew Ann: They didn't know who she was,

and she just came in, and in principle,

they didn't want her there,

and they just raked her over the coals.

I can totally see that happening.

Nancy: It is a boys' club.

Charlie: Remember, we're talking 1979 to 1986,

a kind of a transition period, I would say,

in society and in television.

It was a white male show on screen and off,

and she was only one of two directors,

female directors to work on the show.

Drew Ann: I think also the fact that she was so attractive

probably got in her way a bit

because people just didn't take her that seriously

because she was way too pretty to be smart.

Charles: People at least used to not take

women all that seriously if they were pretty.

You could be one or the other,

pretty or smart but not both.

Thomas: It doesn't matter what they look like.

I think just they didn't take seriously women directors.

Chas. Floyd: We see that kind of chauvinism in our business

and in many places in our society.

And when you have women like Susan doing it early on,

I'm not surprised at that.

Ron: We decided, "Oh, let's get drunk."

She'd go, "Oh, good old boys' club!"

and then she'll laugh right after

because she wasn't going to let that get her down.

Drew Ann: Because there are so many fewer women doing it,

they're all sort of in the spotlight.

Charles: It's a small town,

and people talk to one another.

And in fact, if somebody was looking to hire a director

and they didn't know the director,

they would be very likely to call

the director's former employers.

And if those people said,

"You know, I wouldn't if I were you.

"We had a lot of trouble,"

that'd be it.

Ron: You're only as good as your last job.

So as a director, she was basically

John: Susan did everything she could to get into Star Trek

because she wanted to direct one of the episodes.

They told her no because she lacked

special effect qualifications.

Larry: The directors that they had

that didn't have experience working with

visual effects and blue screen,

that can cause a lot of headaches and a lot of costs.

Drew Ann: That's why you have a special effects supervisor

because they explain to you what you need to know.

Laurie: There's a lot of buzzwords

that women get used to being told,

"special effects," "action."

Those types of things where they're reasons

why you can't get hired.

Nancy: I don't know anything about special effects,

nothing.

Drew Ann: What you don't know, you learn.

I mean you make it your business to find out.

Things are constantly changing anyway.

Larry: I have the feeling that she could have gone to school

and boned up and studied with a couple of guys on the run

and been just fine.

Nancy: I would call the guys on the set and I'd say,

"Come on, I have to have this guy

"walk through a wall,

"and I'm not quite sure I set it up correctly.

"Could you just check it out and make sure it's right?"

"Oh, we'd love to."

You got to work the system.

Timathea: She would tell me how frustrated she was

about the fact that things weren't going

the way that she wanted them to.

James: The Latin aphorism, if you will,

was, "Illegitimi non carborundum ,"

which is, "Don't let the bastards get you down,"

one of Susan's favorite sayings.

Michael: She really wanted to write some scripts of her own.

Ron: She says, "How about you and I working together?"

She wanted it to be a action adventure

with a black lead and a female British agent.

You see, once again, the tough lady that kicks ass.

Michael: They never really got too far

because she couldn't get the backing

that she was looking for.

Ron: One of the first things they would say,

"Oh, we can get another director."

And so the first thing we would say,

"Oh, we'll take it somewhere else.

"Thank you."

Timathea: And I wonder how much she discarded herself

when she got frustrated

because I know when I would visit her,

the world that she lived in,

if it's a representation of who she was,

was pretty dismal.

She was saying to me that her life was not

what she had expected.

Ron: She realized that she was fighting a losing battle.

Michael: And we felt sorry for her.

I mean later on in her acting,

she was doing things like "Murder, She Wrote."

It's almost embarrassing to watch those nowadays

because the scripts are so terrible.

Louise: What we need is someone the police will respect.

We have that somebody.

Prisoner: Where?

Louise: Right here.

Prisoners: Oh.

Michael: She just looked old,

and she shouldn't have been old.

Timathea: That's true.

The "Murder, She Wrote," she definitely didn't look

the way she should be looking.

Ron: She wasn't taking care of herself.

She started getting more paler.

She started losing weight

because she was almost anorexic at one point.

Mike: Biff had his roast at The Comedy Store.

Biff: This was in 1988,

and here was Susan.

Mike: Oh, I couldn't believe it was her.

Biff: I was shocked how she had dissipated.

It was sad.

John: She just kind of withered somewhat,

and her health was not very good in the later part,

and I was shocked one time when I did watch something.

"My God!" I thought.

"That's Susan.

"What the hell happened to her?

"What's wrong?"

Tom: And of course, she came to the set

made up and everything,

and she looked gaunt

and older than I remembered seeing her,

and she didn't look 100% healthy, frankly.

In those days, lots of times,

we'd have actors come in.

They just wanted to work to keep their benefits up

if they hadn't worked for a while.

And I don't know if that was the situation with her

because I was kind of surprised that she came in to do

kind of a low-budget cult show.

Ron: Every once in a while, she goes,

"Oh, I got to do this stupid show.

"I got to keep my health insurance going."

Tom: The day she showed up,

people were buzzing that she was coming,

but they never said, "Susan is coming."

They said, "Vina is coming."

I think she had a lot of personal demons

by the time we worked together,

and as I said, it kind of came through in the performance.

If you watch the episode, you'll see it

there's something behind her eyes.

Most everything she did, there was a sadness.

James: As a single person supporting her mother

with a waning economic career,

she had her challenges.

Michael: There were times when

Ruth and Susan lived apart,

and one time in particular was when Ruth lived in a house

that was built by Susan's half-brother.

Ron: Ruth took it as Susan trying to get rid of her.

James: The house was built utilizing standard materials

but materials that

Ruth felt were toxic.

Michael: Now whether the chemicals really bothered her,

whether Ruth just decided she wanted to live with Susan,

we don't know.

Ron: Susan was going, "What am I going to do

James: After sleeping in the yard

and having all kinds of problems,

ultimately, Ruth moved back to California.

Michael: It was quite a burden for Susan,

and she really wanted to have her freedom.

Ron: And she put money into those

get-rich-quick pyramid-type schemes.

That was an act of desperation

because she wasn't that way before she lost the houses.

She got this crowd around her,

"Susan Oliver, they're using you to get more people in."

She didn't see it that way

because at these meetings,

of course, she was the big star.

John: But it didn't ultimately come out to be

a big movie star-type life,

which it absolutely could have.

Joan: Oh.

Poor woman.

Poor Mama.

Ron: After losing everything else

and then her mother like that,

dying in a convalescent home in North Hollywood,

it's not probably the way she pictured it.

Skip: I do think she felt the loss of Ruth very deeply,

as complex as that whole lifelong relationship had been.

Ron: Her whole world collapsed on her.

So she was planning on packing and leaving.

She was going to try and get into Broadway.

This was right before she got sick.

Timathea: She could have been ill a lot earlier

than when she actually got diagnosed.

I don't know how often she actually went to be checked.

James: Her illness was discovered in, I believe,

October of '89,

and she declined the course of treatment

recommended by the physician

and at that point went to Mexico

to seek her alternative remedy.

Ron: The first thought I didn't tell her was,

"Are you out of your mind?

"Cancer is serious."

Michael: Susan really didn't want people to know.

She didn't even want me to know.

She didn't want James to know.

Ron: But then things started going south.

Michael: I felt it was necessary to call James.

James: I didn't really know Michael.

He introduced himself, explained who he was.

Michael: James went down to Mexico.

James: I then spoke to her physician in this clinic.

He said she needed to get out of here,

that these treatments were not effective.

But I talked to Susan and she, on the one hand,

wished and believed in the alternative treatment,

and on the other hand understood that it wasn't working.

The tumor was hemorrhagic.

It was growing.

Ron: She had an operation.

James: It was more effective than the surgeon had expected.

And he left us with an idea

of a reasonably positive prognosis.

Ron: And she was cleared,

but she had to do the chemo and follow up,

but she didn't want to do it.

James: Distaste at some level

of Susan seeing her mother in a hospital environment

when she was dying

did have an impact.

Michael: She may have felt that it just was not going to

do any good for her.

Nancy: Aside from being terribly touched and upset

about her personal illness,

I was upset and touched about the fact that the soldiers

that we were in those days,

I was losing one of my soldiers.

Timathea: But I think that she was really struggling hard

and fighting against a life

that was very difficult at the end.

And then without her mom there,

without the opportunities

that she really wanted to have in her career,

I think it was just really tough.

Ron: It's not that she gave up.

She believed too much in the holistic method of healing.

James: It proved to only be a matter of months

before the metastatic manifestations of the tumor

became evident.

Ron: She was saying, "I just saw the doctor,

"and I have a few months to live."

James: And then she was in and out Motion Picture Hospital

in April of that year.

Michael: Jerry Lewis offered to take care of

whatever Susan's needs were

as soon as he found out that she was ill.

Timathea: I mean she didn't take Jerry Lewis'

offer to get help,

so I wonder whether she felt like she shouldn't take it

or whether there was no help.

James: She was not emotionally distressed.

She was calm.

She called her answering machine

and left a valedictory message,

which obviously represents some awareness.

She knew this was probably

her final communication to the world.

When we did her will,

she left her estate

a third to the children of her mother's family

and a third to the children of the Gercke side.

Timathea: Which really touched my heart

because I didn't know that we were

all that important to her.

So the fact that she didn't have kids,

now that I'm a mom,

really breaks my heart.

Skip: And she had said it publicly,

she'd rather be unmarried

and have a child than have no child at all

way before people thought

that that was even

reasonably acceptable.

James: She had a tortuously complex way

to select a donor father

and then try and have this child.

And she had a particular donor

who ultimately didn't consent,

and that was the end of that.

Skip: Had she had a child,

would she have gone through these decisions

when she became ill?

Would she have kind of stepped up?

James: There were undone things in her career,

but I don't think she thought of her career as a failure.

Ron: I got a hold of Johnny Grant,

the mayor of Hollywood back then,

and I said, "Hey, we got to get together and put a star

"on Hollywood Boulevard for Susan."

I thought I did really well and then I'm proud of myself,

so I go, "Susan, they're going to put a star up for you."

She looked at me and she said,

"You're not putting a star up there.

"I don't want a star."

It humbled me a lot because it made me realize

you don't do it because you want to be a star.

James: She was dying the way she had chosen to live,

on her terms,

and she was at peace with that.

Ron: Hal Fishman, that night,

because we were watching TV,

and he mentioned she passed,

and I think he was the only one.

Hal: It's also with great personal sadness

that I report tonight the passing of actress Susan Oliver,

who died tonight at the

Motion Picture & Television Country Hospital

in the San Fernando Valley.

Susan was 58 years old.

Ron: Sandy Koufax called back

and gave his condolences and felt sorry.

But everybody else that I called, nada.

Nada.

No one else called back.

Hal: She'll be missed.

She leaves a magnificent legacy of her talent,

her films, and her intellect.

The memorial service was at a theater

up above Sunset a few blocks.

Gene Roddenberry was there.

A number of other people

would stand up in the audience

and just present their recollections.

Timathea: One person would get up and talk about

a completely different woman

than any of the rest of us knew,

but she had the same character and the same warmth

and dedication and energy.

Michael: And we found out that

she had compartmentalized her life

in many private sectors.

Timathea: And a couple of people towards the end

even started saying that they had learned

so much more about her than she had ever shared.

Michael: Someone said that she was a fire marshal

at one of the studios.

Timathea: Maya Angelou had a letter written,

and I thought that would have been so great

to talk to Susan about.

Michael: People didn't want to leave.

They just wanted to take in all of this love that was there

and all of this cheer about what a full life

this young lady had.

Nina: And all of us should really enjoy

what she had to offer.

I wish she could have appreciated

just how much that was.

Stephen: What's left behind should be looked at

because young actors need to learn where they came from,

and a lot of them don't get it.

But if you watch Susan Oliver

despite the material,

watch the performances,

and sometimes it will astound you.

Gary: To get to do what she did

and to be known the way she was and so on,

that's still one in a million.

Stephen: I think had she concentrated

and had she had the opportunities in the '90s,

she could have proven herself very much

a very important director.

Ron: She was a square that didn't fit into the circle,

and she was always fighting that.

Rev. Rosey Grier: She had a great sense of humor.

I thought she was just a tremendous woman.

Nancy: Lovely human being

and very caring.

Chas. Floyd: One of the very special people I ever met.

Dick: Would that the entire industry were made up

of people like Susan Oliver,

it would be a much more enjoyable industry.

Kathleen: I will love her forever.

She was very special.

She was a good egg.

David: I'm so happy that I got to know her,

that I got to know Charlotte Gercke

when she was very young

and the woman that became Susan Oliver.

Ron: Because you don't find many people like that.

Biff: She was just so watchable and endearing,

you wanted to embrace her.

You wanted to protect her.

I didn't want to go there.

Susan: Hi Susan, this is Susan.

On May 1st, uh, Tuesday.

And it's 12:34 afternoon,

and uh, calling, in the hospital,

and I'm waiting for Ron and James.

And I'm running very short of breath.

So, I just wanted to say I'm gonna

certainly hold on till the lawyer gets here at 4, hopefully,

and - got to take care of that, just got to.

And I just want to say how much I love everybody

and happy I've been in sharing this

imperfect, but magnificent world of ours.

And, uh, I wish that you all find your dreams and your love.

And I love you.

Adios.

Sayonara.