Susan Anspach obit

Susan Anspach Dies: ‘Five Easy Pieces’ & ‘Play It Again, Sam’ Actress Was 75

 

She was not on the list.

Actress Susan Anspach, whose style came to epitomize the counterculture of the 1960s and ’70s in such films as Five Easy Pieces, has died. She passed away Monday at her home in Los Angeles from coronary problems, according to her son, Caleb Goddard.

Anspach was on the cutting edge of acting in the 1960s. She appeared in the off-Broadway version of Hair early in her career, then moved on to such films as The Landlord, Blume in Love and opposite Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces.

Anspach (pronounced ONS-bok) began her film career in 1972 in Hal Ashby’s The Landlord (1970), following that same year with her definitive role, the classic Five Easy Pieces directed by Bob Rafelson. Anspach portrayed a New Age intellectual who sleeps with Nicholson even though she is engaged to his character’s brother.

She continued along with a busy schedule, appearing as writer-director-star Woody Allen’s ex-wife in 1972’s Play It Again, Sam, followed by the 1973 film Blume in Love, in which she traded in a stuffy husband for musician Kris Kristofferson and his far different lifestyle.

Born Florence Anspach on November 23, 1942, in Queens, she was raised at first by a great aunt, then by her parents, whom she joined at age 6. Anspach claimed neglect and left home at age 15, moving in with a family in Harlem.

She received a full scholarship to the Catholic University of America in Washington, studyng music and drama, and made her acting debut in Thornton Wilder’s one-act play Pullman Car Hiawatha at a Maryland summer theater.

After college, she moved to New York and fell in with then-struggling actors Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. She made her stage debut in 1965 in the off-Broadway play A View from the Bridge, which also starred Voight and Robert Duvall.

Anspach worked into her 60s in film and television, appeared in the 2009 movie Wild About Harry. 

Survivors include her son, Caleb; a daughter, Catherine Goddard; three grandchildren; and a brother, Robert Anspach. No details on a memorial service have been revealed.

Filmography

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes    Ref.

1970      The Landlord      Susan Enders      Directed by Hal Ashby   

Five Easy Pieces                Catherine Van Oost         Directed, produced, and story by Bob Rafelson  

1972      Play It Again, Sam             Nancy   

    Directed by Herbert Ross

    Based on the play of the same name by Woody Allen and the screenplay by Allen         

1973      Blume in Love    Nina Blume         Directed, written, and produced by Paul Mazursky           

1978      The Big Fix           Lila        

    Comedy–drama film directed by Jeremy Kagan

    Based on the novel of the same name by Roger L. Simon and screenplay by Simon.

1979      Running               Janet     Sports drama film directed by Steven Hilliard Stern          

1981      The Devil and Max Devlin              Penny Hart          Fantasy–comedy film directed by Steven Hilliard Stern   

Gas         Jane Beardsley Canadian comedy film directed by Les Rose         

Montenegro      Marilyn Jordan

    Swedish black comedy film by Serbian director Dušan Makavejev

    Also known as Montenegro – Or Pigs and Pearls

1984      Misunderstood Lily        

    Drama film directed by Jerry Schatzberg

    Based on the 1869 novel Misunderstood by Florence Montgomery

    Previously been adapted as the 1966 Italian film Incompreso

1987      Blue Monkey     Dr. Judith Glass Horror film directed by William Fruet     

Heaven and Earth            Karen McKeon                  

1988      Into the Fire       Rosalind Winfield             Thriller film directred by Graeme Campbell          

1989      The Rutanga Tapes          Kate Simpson                    

Blood Red            Widow Drama film directed by Peter Masterson               

Back to Back       Madeline Hix                     

2009      Wild About Harry             Martha Drama film directed by Gwen Wynne and co-written by Wynne & Mary Beth Fielder

2011      Inversion             Edna Boswell      (final film role)

 

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes    Ref.

1964      The Nurses         Harriet Ravensel              

    Episode: "So Some Girls Play the Cello" (S 3:Ep 10)

    Also known as The Doctors and the Nurses     

1965      The Patty Duke Show      Susan    Episode: "Will the Real Sammy Davis Please Hang Up?" (S 2:Ep 25)            

The Defenders Jackie Dowling   Episode: "A Matter of Law and Disorder" (S 4:Ep 26)        

The Patty Duke Show      Susan    Episode: "Cathy, the Rebel" (S 2:Ep 31)  

The Nurses         Leora    

    Episode: "The Heroine" (S 3:Ep 29)

    Also known as The Doctors and the Nurses

1966      The Journey of the Fifth Horse    Miss Gruboy / Elizaveta Made-for-TV-Movie directed by Larry Arrick and Earl Dawson               

1969      Judd, for the Defense     Nan Dawes         Episode: "Runaway" (S 2:Ep 23)

1973      Love Story           Lee McKinley      Episode: "All My Tomorrows" (S 1:Ep 2)

1975      For the Use of the Hall   Terry     Made-for-TV-Movie directed by Lee Grant           

1976      McMillan & Wife              Lt. Kit Boone       Episode: "Point of Law" (S 5:Ep 7)             

I Want to Keep My Baby!              Donna Jo Martelli             Made-for-TV-Movie directed by Jerry Thorpe     

The Secret Life of John Chapman               Wilma  

    Made-for-TV-Movie directed by David Lowell Rich

    Based on Appleseed: The Life and Legacy of John Chapman by John R. Coleman

1977      Rosetti and Ryan              Beverly Dresden               Episode: "Men Who Love Women" (Pilot)      

Mad Bull              Christina Sebastiani         Made-for-TV-Movie directed by Walter Doniger and Len Steckler              

1979      The Last Giraffe                Betty Leslie-Melville       

    Made-for-TV-Movie directed by Jack Couffer

    Based on Raising Daisy Rothschild by Leslie-Melville

1980      Portrait of an Escort        Jordan West       Made-for-TV-Movie directed by Steven Hilliard Stern      

1982      The First Time    Lucy Dillon          Made-for-TV-Movie directed by Noel Nosseck   

1982      Deadly Encounter             Chris Butler         Made-for-TV-Movie directed by William A. Graham         

1984      Gone Are the Dayes        Phyllis Daye        Made-for-TV-Movie directed by Gabrielle Beaumont      

1989      Murder, She Wrote         Lois Fricksey       Episode: "Dead Letter" (S 6:Ep 6)              

2002      Dancing at the Harvest Moon      Julia       Made-for-TV-Movie directed Bobby Roth