A fascinating aura of mystery seemed to surround the characters portrayed by blue-eyed blonde actress Susan Oliver, whose trademark high cheekbones, rosebud lips and heart-shaped face kept audiences intrigued for nearly three decades. While her career didn't play out as well as it should have, she nevertheless left a fine legacy of work on stage, ...
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress - Drama or Comedy Special
Movies
The Disorderly Orderly, Guns of Diablo, BUtterfield 8, Your Cheatin' Heart, The Green-Eyed Blonde, Ginger in the Morning, Hardly Working, The Gene Krupa Story, The Caretakers, The Love-Ins, The Monitors, Change of Mind, A Man Called Gannon, Carter’s Army, Looking for Love, Company of Killers, Amel...
TV Shows
Peyton Place
Star Sign
Aquarius
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Trademark
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High cheekbones
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Sparkling blue eyes
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Platinum blonde hair
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Quote
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I want to be the best actress I can. But most of all, I want to be myself.
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[in 1988 interview] Any actor who is a professional picks up so much information from years of experience that they bring extra insights into directing. Not every actor will be a good director, you must have a good visual sense, a good story sense. I feel very deeply that I want to tell stories of value on film.
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Fact
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Lived with Jim Hutton throughout 1963; and they parted, when she began focusing on her career as a pilot.
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Oliver experienced an event in February 1959 that belied her later aviation accomplishments. She was a passenger aboard the Clipper Washington, a Boeing 707 on a transatlantic flight from Paris to New York City when it dropped from 35,000 feet to 6000 feet. It happened on February 3, 1959, the same day Buddy Holly died in an airplane crash. These events caused her a paralyzing fear of flying and it took extensive hypnosis to overcome it. In July 1964, she was reintroduced to personal flying when he took her on an evening flight over Los Angeles in a Cessna 172. The experience motivated her to return the next day to the Santa Monica Airport to begin training for a Private Pilot certificate next year.
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A week after her popular character Ann Howard on Peyton Place (1964) was killed off on the series in 1966, Susan survived the crash of a Piper Cub near Santa Paula, California that a friend was piloting.
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She was one of the original 19 women admitted to the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women (AFI DWW).
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Was a Buddhist and an expert on baseball.
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In celebration of Star Trek (1966)'s 30th anniversary, an action figure was released of Susan as her character, Vina, on Star Trek: The Cage (1986).
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Her memoir "Odyssey" detailed her journeys as a pilot. She once survived the crash of her own Piper Cub plane in 1966.
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Trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse.
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Gorgeous blonde of 1960s movies with equally gorgeous cheekbones who tended to play neurotic, troubled types. She attracted major television attention on Peyton Place (1964) when her character, Ann Howard, was killed off, and also has a minor cult following as Vina from the original series pilot Star Trek: The Cage (1986).
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Her mother was noted Hollywood astrologer Ruth Oliver. She died in 1988, two years before Susan. Her father, George Gercke, was a newspaperman.
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Attempted to become the first woman to fly a single-engine plane solo from New York to Moscow, but was deterred in Denmark when the Soviet government denied her permission to enter their air space.
$1.7 Million
