She was not on the list.
Susan Tyrrell, an actress whose willfully erratic career
included an Oscar-nominated turn in the 1972 John Huston film "Fat
City," died 2012. She was 67.
Susan Jillian Creamer was born into show business. He father
was a top agent at the William Morris Agency. Loretta Young and Carole Lombard
were among his clients. However, she later described her childhood in wealthy
New Canaan, CT, as "miserable." Rebelling against her proper
upbringing, and a prim, demanding, English mother, she got poor grades and was
often kicked out of class. She cut off contact with her mother when she was a
teenager.
Pulling some strings, her father got young Susan an ingenue
part in a 1963 touring company of the gentle comedy Time Out For Ginger
starring Art Carney. He then persuaded Look magazine to follow her as she
traveled with the show. Her father died soon after from the effects of a bee
sting.
Ms. Tyrrell made her Broadway debut in 1965 as a replacement
performer in the hit comedy Cactus Flower. As a member of the Repertory Theatre
of Lincoln Center, she was in the ensemble of a 1968 production of King Lear
starring Lee J. Cobb; the premiere of William Gibson's A Cry of Players; and
revivals of The Time of Your Life and Camino Real. Even at that tender age, she
had a lived-in face and a throaty, low voice, and was frequently cast as
whores, lushes and sexpots.
Off-Broadway, she acted in the 1967 premiere of Lanford
Wilson's The Rimers of Eldritch and a 1979 staging of Father's Day at American
Place Theatre.
She made her film debut in 1971's "Shoot Out," a
revenge drama starring Gregory Peck as a wronged bank robber. This was followed
by "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me" and "The
Steagle." She was only 26 when she auditioned for the part of Oma, the
hard, boozing girlfriend of Tully (played by Stacy Keach), a boxer on his way
down, in John Huston's "Fat City." She told Huston, "I know you
think I'm too young for the part, but I don't think there's anything
interesting about a 35-year-old barfly. What about a 25-year-old barfly? Why is
she there?" Her performance was hailed as one of the great screen drunks
of all time. (She admitted to already being well-acquainted with drugs and
alcohol.) The film turned out to be a comeback movie for the then-flailing
Huston, and Ms. Tyrrell received an Academy Award nomination for her work.
After "Fat City," Ms. Tyrrell rarely won parts as
good. That's not to say, however, that her roles were uninteresting.
She played Solly, a hard-bitten, foul-mouthed lesbian, in
both "Angel" (1984) and its sequel "Avenging Angel" (1985).
She was a Mae West-like Emilia in "Catch My Soul," the film version
of Jack Good's musical interpretation of Othello. Her performance in "Andy
Warhol's Bad," as the dim-witted daughter-in-law of a beauty salon owner
who employs female assassins on the side, won her a Saturn Award for Best
Supporting Actress. Perhaps most infamously, she was the Queen of the Sixth
Dimension in "Forbidden Zone," a 1982 musical comedy film based upon
the stage performances of the pop group Oingo Boingo. The film was greeted with
hostility, but became a cult hit.
She played the diminutive wife of circus master Kris
Kristofferson in 1988's "Big Top Pee-Wee," and Ramona Rickettes,
Johnny Depp's trampy grandma, in "Cry-Baby," John Waters' 1990 satire
of 1950s teen drama. By then, Ms. Tyrrell fit in perfectly with Waters'
grab-bag cast of pop-culture icons, which included Iggy Pop, Troy Donahue, Traci
Lords and Polly Bergen.
In 2000, she had both of her legs amputated as a result of
blood clots caused by essential thrombocythemia, a rare blood disease.
She continued to act after losing her legs. The change in
her physical appearance did nothing to alter the sort of characters she played,
which went by names such as High Priestess and Ella the Fortune Teller.
In the 1980s, she returned to the stage, appearing in small
Los Angeles productions. She also performed her own one-woman show, entitled
"My Rotten Life: A Bitter Operetta."
"I don't like ingenue people," she said in a 1972
interview in The New York Times. "And I don't like to see them in the
movies. I like people with heart and soul, and character work is soul."
Filmography
Film
Year Title Role Notes
1971 The Steagle Louise
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me Jack
Shoot Out Alma
1972 Fat City Oma Lee Greer New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best
Supporting Actress (2nd place)
National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting
Actress (2nd place)
Nominated — Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
1974 Catch My Soul
Emilia
Zandy's Bride Maria
Cordova
To Kill the King Maggie
Van Birchard
1976 The Killer
Inside Me Joyce Lakeland
1977 Andy Warhol's
Bad Mary Aiken Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress
Wizards Narrator
Voice, Uncredited
Islands in the Stream Lil
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Lee
September 30, 1955 Melba
Lou
Another Man, Another Chance Alice
1978 Loose Shoes Boobies
1979 Racquet Miss Baxter
1980 Forbidden
Zone Queen Doris of the
Sixth Dimension / Ruth Henderson
1981 Subway Riders
Eleanor Langley
Night Warning Cheryl
Roberts (Aunt Cheryl)
Tales of Ordinary Madness Vera
1982 Liar's Moon Lora Mae Bouvier
Fast-Walking Evie
1983 Fire and Ice Juliana Voice
1984 Angel Solly Mosler
The Killers Susu,
Second Ragpicker
1985 Avenging
Angel Solly Mosler
Flesh+Blood Celine
1986 The Christmas
Star Sara
1987 The Chipmunk
Adventure Claudia Furschtein Voice
From a Whisper to a Scream Beth
Chandler
The Underachievers Mrs.
Grant
1988 Tapeheads Nikki Morton
Big Top Pee-wee Midge
Montana
1989 Far from Home
Agnes Reed
1990 Rockula Chuck the Bartender
Cry-Baby Ramona
Rickettes
1991 Motorama Bartender
1992 Susan
Tyrrell: My Rotten Life, a Bitter Operetta The
Woman
1995 The
Demolitionist Mayor Eleanor
Grimbaum
Digital Man Mildred
Hodges
Powder Maxine
1997 Poison Ivy:
The New Seduction Mrs. B
Pink as the Day She Was Born Lana
1998 Relax...It's
Just Sex Alicia Pillsbury
1999 Buddy Boy Sal
Swap Meet
2003 Masked and
Anonymous Ella the Fortune
Teller
2008 The Boneyard
Collection High Priestess
2012 Kid-Thing Esther Voice, (final film role)
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1964 Mr. Novak Phyllis Freuchen Episode: "Beyond a Reasonable
Doubt"
1971 Bonanza Mrs. Jill Conway Episode: "Fallen Woman"
1975 Baretta Pamela / Jenny Episode:
"Double Image"
1976 Starsky and
Hutch Annie / Isabelle Oates Episode: "The Collector"
1978 Kojak Mary Torino Episode:
"In Full Command"
1981-1982 Open
All Night Gretchen Feester 13 episodes
1992 Wings Sconset Sal Episode:
"Marriage, Italian Style" (as Susan Tyrell)
1995 Tales from
the Crypt Mona Episode: "Comes the Dawn"
1997 Extreme
Ghostbusters Achira Voice, Episodes: "Darkness at Noon, Part
1", "Darkness at Noon, Part 2"
Theatre
Year Title Role Notes
1967 The Rimers of
Eldritch Patsy Johnson Cherry Lane Theatre
1968 Cactus Flower
Botticelli's Springtime [Replacement]
Toni (Understudy) [Replacement]
Broadway
1969 King Lear Ensemble Broadway
Invitation to a Beheading Marthe
The Public Theater
A Cry of Players Jenny Broadway
The Time of Your Life Kitty
Duval Broadway
1970 Camino Real Esmeralda
Repertory Theater of Lincoln
Center
1979 Father's Day Louise The
American Place Theatre
1992 Susan
Tyrrell: My Rotten Life, a Bitter Operetta The
Woman
1997 The Joy of
Going Somewhere Definite Patsy,
Older Woman, Waitress Center Theatre
Group
Awards and nominations
Year Work Award Category
Result
1973 Fat City NSFC Award Best Supporting Actress Nominated
NYFCC Award Best
Supporting Actress Nominated
Academy Award Best
Supporting Actress Nominated
1978 Andy Warhol's
Bad Saturn Award Best Supporting Actress Won
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