Susan Oliver

Susan Oliver
As Vina in Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Cage"
Born	Charlotte Gercke February 13, 1932(1932-02-13) New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	May 10, 1990(1990-05-10) (aged 58) Calabasas, California, U.S.
Years active	1955–1988

Susan Oliver (February 13, 1932 – May 10, 1990) was an American actress, television director and aviator.

Early life and family

Susan Oliver was born Charlotte Gercke, the daughter of journalist George Gercke and astrology practitioner Ruth Hale Oliver, in New York City in 1932. Her parents divorced when she was still a child. In June 1949, Oliver joined her mother in Southern California, where Ruth Hale Oliver was in the process of becoming a well-known Hollywood astrologer. Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, she responded to a newspaper 'help-wanted' posting for a position as a hostess at a nearby dude ranch figuring she would enjoy a California Western-style experience. She was interviewed for the job by aviatrix, entrepreneur, Pancho Barnes, who owned the dude ranch known as the Happy Bottom Riding Club.

During her three month employment at the Happy Bottom Riding Club, she would often accompany Pancho Barnes into the San Fernando Valley and Santa Monica airports to pick up and deliver guests in the ranch's airplane. As a result, she became fascinated with aviation, and started taking flying lessons from Pancho Barnes. It was also during her time at the ranch that Oliver made a decision to embark upon a career as an actress and chose the stage name Susan Oliver.

Career

Early years

By September 1949, using her new name, Oliver returned to the East Coast to begin drama studies at Swarthmore College, followed by professional training at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. After working in summer stock, regional theater and in unbilled bits in daytime and primetime TV shows and commercials, she made her first major television appearance playing a supporting role in the July 31, 1955 episode of the live drama series Goodyear TV Playhouse, and quickly progressed to leading parts in other shows.

In 1957, Oliver did numerous TV shows and had a starring role in a movie. She began the year with an ingenue part, as the daughter of an 18th century Manhattan family, in her first Broadway play, Small War on Murray Hill, a Robert E. Sherwood comedy. That same year, Oliver replaced Mary Ure as the female lead in the Broadway production of John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger.

The play's short run was immediately followed by larger roles in live TV plays on Kaiser Aluminum Hour, The United States Steel Hour and Matinee Theater. Oliver then went to Hollywood, where she appeared in the November 14, 1957 episode of Climax!, one of the few live drama series based on the West Coast, as well as in a number of filmed shows, including one of the first episodes of NBC's Wagon Train, Father Knows Best, and Johnny Staccato.

In July 1957, Oliver was chosen for the title role in her first motion picture, The Green-Eyed Blonde, a low-budget independent melodrama released by Warner Bros. in December on the bottom half of a double bill. It is the only motion picture on which Oliver received top billing.

In mid-1958, Oliver began rehearsals for a co-starring role in Patate, her second Broadway play. Its seven-performance run was even shorter than that of Small War on Murray Hill but won Oliver a Theatre World Award for "Outstanding Breakout Performance." It was her last Broadway appearance.

Television and films

Oliver spent the remainder of her career in Hollywood, going on to play in more than 100 television shows. She appeared in episodes of Wagon Train, The Virginian, three episodes each of Adventures in Paradise, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, The Naked City, The Barbara Stanwyck Show, The Andy Griffith Show, Burke's Law, The Fugitive, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., I Spy, The Virginian, and The Name of the Game. Oliver also appeared in television films including Carter's Army. In 1966, Oliver had a continuing role as the tragic Ann Howard on ABC's prime-time serial Peyton Place,

From 1975 to 1976, Oliver as a regular cast member of the soap opera Days of our Lives and received her only Emmy nomination (for "Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actress") in the three-hour October 25, 1976 NBC made-for-TV movie, Amelia Earhart.

In additional to television roles, Oliver also had roles in several theatrical features including The Gene Krupa Story (1959), Butterfield 8 (1960), and The Caretakers (1963).

Directing and later years

By the late 1970s, with acting assignments becoming scarcer, Oliver turned to directing. She was one of the original nineteen women admitted to the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women (AFI DWW) "who, upon her untimely death, left a good chunk of funding for the DWW." In 1977, twenty-eight years after her early experiences in Japan, she wrote and directed Cowboysan, her AFI DWW short film which presents the fantasy scenario of a Japanese actor and actress playing leads in an American western.

Oliver also directed two TV episodes, the October 25, 1982 installment of M*A*S*H and the December 4, 1983 entry of one of its sequel series, Trapper John, M.D..

In Oliver's last fully active year, she also appeared in the February 21, 1985, episode of Magnum, P.I., two episodes of Murder, She Wrote (March 31 and December 1), the February 12, 1987, episode of Simon & Simon, the January 10, 1988, episode of the NBC domestic drama Our House. She made her last onscreen appearance in the November 6, 1988, episode of the syndicated horror anthology Freddy's Nightmares.

Aviator and author

Susan Oliver

After surviving a 1966 plane crash which almost took her life, Oliver co-piloted her Piper Comanche to victory in 1970 in the 2760-mile transcontinental race known as the "Powder Puff Derby", which resulted in her being named Pilot of the Year.

In 1967, she became the fourth woman to fly a single-engined aircraft solo across the Atlantic Ocean and the second to do it from New York City. She was attempting to fly to Moscow, her odyssey ended in Denmark after the government of the Soviet Union denied her permission to enter its air space. Oliver wrote about her aviation exploits and philosophy of life in an autobiography published in 1983 as Odyssey: A Daring Transatlantic Journey.

Death

Oliver died from cancer on May 10, 1990 at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Calabasas, California.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1957	The Kaiser Aluminum Hour	Kay	Episode: "So Short a Season"
1957	Crossroads	Connie Willis	Episode: "9:30 Action"
1958	Kraft Television Theatre	Pamela	Episode: "The Woman at High Hollow"
1958	Suspicion	Rosemary Russell	Episode: "The Woman Turned to Salt"
1959	Trackdown	Rebecca Ford	Episode: "Blind Alley"
1959	Alcoa Theatre	Bernice Davis	Episode: "The Long House on Avenue A"
1960	Bonanza	Leta Malvet	Episode: "The Outcast"
1960	The Twilight Zone	Teenya	Episode: "People Are Alike All Over"
1961	The Aquanauts	Laura West	Episode: "Stormy Weather"
1961	The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet	Lori	Episode: "Rick, the Milkman"
1962	Cain's Hundred	Kitty	Episode: "The Cost of Living"
1962	The Alfred Hitchcock Hour	Annabel Delaney	Episode: "Annabel"
1963	77 Sunset Strip	Kristine Seaver	Episode: "Your Fortune for a Penny"
1963	The Caretakers	Nurse Cathy Clark
1964	Destry	Rebecca Fairhaven	Episode: "One Hundred Bibles"
1964	Looking for Love	Jan McNair
1965	Seaway	Sue Murray	Episode: The Sparrows"
1965	The Man from U.N.C.L.E.	Ursula Alice Baldwin	Episode: "The Bow-Wow Affair"
1966	A Man Called Shenandoah	Virginia Harvey	Episode: "Rope's End"
1966	Peyton Place	Ann Howard	48 episodes
1967	The Love-Ins	Patricia Cross
1967	The Wild Wild West	Triste	Episode: "The Night Dr. Loveless Died"
1968	A Man Called Gannon	Matty
1969	The Big Valley	Kate Wilson	Episode: "Alias Nellie Handley"
1969	Change of Mind	Margaret Rowe
1971	Dan August	Leona Serling	Episode: "Prognosis: Homicide"
1971	Sarge	Fran	Episode: "An Accident Waiting to Happen"
1972	Medical Center	Ruth	Episode: "Vision of Doom"
1972	Gunsmoke	Sarah Elkins	Episode: "Eleven Dollars"
1973	Cannon	Jill Thorson	Episode: "Moving Target"
1974	Ginger in the Morning	Sugar
1974	Police Story	Rina Prescott	Episode: "World Full of Hurt"
1977	The Streets of San Francisco	Gracie Boggs	Episode: "Hang Tough"
1980	Hardly Working	Claire Trent
1982	Tomorrow's Child	Marilyn Hurst	Television movie
1982	M*A*S*H		Director, 1 episode
1983	Trapper John, M.D.		Director, 1 episode
1982	International Airport	Mary Van Leuven	Television movie
1988	Our House	Olga Zelnikova	Episode: "Balance of Power"
1988	Freddy's Nightmares	The Maid	Episode: "Judy Miller, Come on Down"

External links

• Susan Oliver at the Internet Movie Database
• Susan Oliver at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• susanoliver.info Oliver biography and pictoral site