Susan Harrison

Susan Harrison

Born: August 26, 1938
in Leesburg, Florida, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Susan Harrison (born August 26, 1938 in Leesburg, Florida) is an American actress. She is most famous for her appearance in the 1957 film noir classic Sweet Smell of Success as the sister for whom Burt Lancaster has an unhealthy affection as well as in The Twilight Zone episode "Five Characters in Search of an Exit."

She is a graduate of the High School of Performing Arts in New York City, where she played Frankie in Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers and Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. She attended Boston University, briefly studying under Peter Kass, who directed her in the role of Abigail in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Her professional debut was in the live television drama Can You Coffeepot on Skates?, presented in 1956. This was followed by television appearances on Matinee Theatre and Alfred Hitchcock Presents and her cinematic debut in Sweet Smell of Success. On October 19, 1957, she opened on Broadway at the Bijou Theater, playing "the Girl" in William Saroyan's new play The Cave Dwellers to uniformly good reviews. The following year she was in the Playhouse 90 production of In Lonely Expectation, which brought her to the attention of Rod Serling and led to her role as the ballerina in the iconic Twilight Zone episode. She had several later television and stage roles, most notably in an episode of the television show Bonanza, "Dark Star." In 1960 she played Ruby, the female lead, in the little-seen film Key Witness with Jeffrey Hunter and Dennis Hopper.

By 1963 she had left public life and acting and devoted herself to family matters, though in the 1990s she played Elberta in a Southern Illinois University production of Mixed Couples. She has since appeared at various film and science fiction conventions.

She is the mother of Darva Conger, the bride in Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?, a controversial Fox reality TV program that aired once in February 2000 and was never repeated. She also has two sons, one deceased, and two stepsons. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

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Movies for Susan Harrison...

The Twilight Zone Christmas Classics
Title: The Twilight Zone Christmas Classics
Character: The ballerina
Released: October 7, 2014
Type: Movie
The Christmas Fantasy "Night of the Meek" starring Art Carney as a drunken department-store Santa who experiences quite an epiphany on Christmas Eve. And “Five Characters in search of an exit”.
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Key Witness
Title: Key Witness
Character: Ruby
Released: October 6, 1960
Type: Movie
An average Los Angeles citizen witnesses a gang murder when he stops to use a telephone. When he presents himself to the LAPD as the only person willing to identify the culprits, he opens himself up to a campaign of intimidation from the gang involved.
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Title: The Twilight Zone
Character: Ballerina
Released: October 2, 1959
Type: TV
A series of unrelated stories containing drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, and/or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist.
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Title: Bonanza
Character: Tirza
Released: September 12, 1959
Type: TV
The High-Sierra adventures of Ben Cartwright and his sons as they run and defend their ranch while helping the surrounding community.
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Sweet Smell of Success
Title: Sweet Smell of Success
Character: Susan Hunsecker
Released: July 4, 1957
Type: Movie
New York City newspaper writer J.J. Hunsecker holds considerable sway over public opinion with his Broadway column, but one thing that he can't control is his younger sister, Susan, who is in a relationship with aspiring jazz guitarist Steve Dallas. Hunsecker strongly disapproves of the romance and recruits publicist Sidney Falco to find a way to split the couple, no matter how ruthless the method.
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Title: Matinee Theater
Released: October 31, 1955
Type: TV
Matinee Theater is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was frequently live. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George Lowther. McCleery had previously produced the live series Cameo Theatre which introduced to television the concept of theater-in-the-round, TV plays staged with minimal sets. Jim Buckley of the Pewter Plough Playhouse recalled: When Al McCleery got back to the States, he originated a most ambitious theatrical TV series for NBC called Matinee Theater: to televise five different stage plays per week live, airing around noon in order to promote color TV to the American housewife as she labored over her ironing. Al was the producer. He hired five directors and five art directors. Richard Bennett, one of our first early presidents of the Pewter Plough Corporation, was one of the directors and I was one of the art directors and, as soon as we were through televising one play, we had lunch and then met to plan next week’s show. That was over 50 years ago, and I’m trying to think; I believe the TV art director is his own set decorator —yes, of course! It had to be, since one of McCleery’s chief claims to favor with the producers was his elimination of the setting per se and simply decorating the scene with a minimum of props. It took a bit of ingenuity.
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Title: Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Character: Susan Harper
Released: October 2, 1955
Type: TV
A television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock featuring dramas, thrillers, and mysteries.