Born Charlotte Gercke in 1932, blue-eyed blond beauty Susan Oliver was a mainstay on prime-time TV from 1955-1988, piling up 163 credits, the fantasy of many a baby boomer, including yours truly. She was a series regular only twice, in 49 episodes of
Peyton Place before her character was killed off, and for a year on the day time soap opera
Days of Our Lives. She was equally at home on the stage, as well as the silver and small screen. Last night I happened to catch
The Menagerie: Part II, the twelfth episode of the first season of the original
Start Trek, in which Oliver and Jeffrey Hunter were paired. Hunter had played the Captain of the Enterprise in the pilot, shot in 1964. His scenes were culled from that. When NBC wanted to shoot a second pilot, Hunter decided to concentrate on his movie career, the best thing that ever happened to William Shatner. Tragically, Hunter passed away at 42 from complications of strokes he suffered. Oliver not only excelled in front of the camera, she did some work behind it as well, directing an episode each of
MASH and its offshoot
Trapper John, M.D.. She wrote, produced and directed a short,
Cowboysan (1978), about a Japanese actor starring in westerns. She'd spent a couple of years in Japan in the late '40's, living with her dad, a journalist. In 1959 she was aboard a Boeing 707 on a transatlantic flight from Paris to NYC when it dropped from 35,000 feet to 6000 feet. It happened on February 3rd, the day Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper were killed. The events caused a paralyzing fear of flying in her, which required extensive hypnosis to overcome. In 1964 she was reintroduced to flying during an evening flight over Los Angeles in a Cessna. The next day she began training for a Private Pilot certificate. She survived the crash of her own Piper Cub plane in 1966. In 1970 she and her partner, Margaret Mead (not the anthropologist), won the Powder Puff Derby, a women-only cross country air-race. 98 planes were entered. Oliver was named Pilot of the Year. Although she never married, she lived with actor Jim Hutton in 1963. I recall how disappointed I was that her characters frequently were smokers. She died of lung cancer at 58 in 1990. Here's a quote attributed to her: "I want to be the best actress I can. But most of all, I want to be myself." Here's a pic:
Facts from IMDb, Wiki and other sources.
I thought the floating book shop would be a snap today, but 50 degrees felt more like 30, a raw kind of cold. My thanks to the woman who donated four books in Russian, to the gentleman who bought one of them; to the guy who calls me Irv, who purchased his third Anne Rice novel from me,
The Witching Hour; and to Ira, who selected a Princess Diana bio,
The Encyclopedia of Signs & Symbols, a family guide to law published in 1974, and
Eat Fish, Live Better: How to Put More Fish and Omega-3 Fish Oils into Your Diet for a Longer, Healthier Life by Anne M. Fletcher and Jean Mayer.
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