SUSAN OLIVER
Name: Susan Oliver
Birth name: Charlotte Gercke
Born: 13 February 1932 New York City
Died: 10 May 1990 Woodland Hills, California, United States
Susan Oliver (February 13, 1932 - May 10, 1990), stage name of Charlotte Gercke,
was an Emmy-nominated American actress, television director and a record-setting
aviator.
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.
At the end of World War II, George Gercke joined the United States Information
Agency and in 1946 was posted to Japan as a supervisor overseeing news
dissemination and instruction in democratic institutions during the U. S.
occupation. While living with her father, Charlotte studied at Tokyo
International College in 1948-49 and developed a lifelong interest in Japanese
society and its absorption of American pop culture.
Upon coming back from Japan in June 1949, she joined her mother in Southern
California, where Ruth Hale Oliver was in the process of becoming a well-known
Hollywood astrologer. Surrounded by the trappings of show business, she made a
decision to embark upon a career as an actress and chose the stage name Susan
Oliver.
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.
1957 was a banner year for Oliver, including Broadway, numerous TV shows and a
starring role in a movie. She began the year with an important 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.
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 the October 30, 1957 Wagon Train
and the title role of "Country Cousin", an installment of Father Knows Best,
broadcast on March 5, 1958.
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
Brothers in December on the bottom half of a double bill. It is the only
motion picture on which Oliver received first billing.
At the close of the year, Oliver returned to New York, appearing in Robert Alan
Aurthur's "The Thundering Wave", the December 12, 1957 broadcast of the
prestigious live drama series Playhouse 90. Her performance in the John
Frankenheimer-directed teleplay was well-received and she was invited to
Playhouse 90 two more times, March 26, 1959 and January 21, 1960.
As the next year began, Oliver continued to be a part of the Golden Age of TV
Drama, acting in the February 26, 1958 episode of Kraft Television Theatre and "The
Woman Who Turned to Salt", the June 16, 1958 installment of Suspicion, an hour-long
suspense anthology series produced by Alfred Hitchcock. Oliver's entry, directed
by Robert Stevens, also starred Michael Rennie along with Hitchcock's daughter,
Patricia.
In mid-1958, Oliver began rehearsals for a co-starring role in Patate, her
second Broadway play. Its 7-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 Oliver's last Broadway appearance.
Oliver spent the remainder of her career in Hollywood, going on to play in more
than one hundred television shows, five made-for-TV movies, as well as twelve
additional theatrical features. She appeared in three more episodes of Wagon
Train, four episodes of The Virginian, three episodes each of Adventures in
Paradise, Route 66 and Dr. Kildare, as well as "Never Wave Goodbye", a
critically-praised October 8 October 15, 1963 two-part episode of The Fugitive.
On April 12, 1961 she appeared in an episode of The Naked City, "A Memory of
Crying".
She was fourth-billed in her second theatrical feature, 1959's The Gene Krupa
Story. The film gave her the meaty femme fatale role of Dorissa Dinell, a
beautiful big-band singer who seduces up-and-coming drum virtuoso Gene Krupa (1909-1973),
played by Sal Mineo, from the faithful girl who truly loves him (Susan Kohner)
into a high life of partying and marijuana smoking. The fictional Dinell was
based on a number of women in Krupa's life, but reviewers primarily noted that
Oliver had the film's juiciest dialogue.
Of the ten players listed in the opening credits of her next movie, the 1960
Elizabeth Taylor vehicle BUtterfield 8, Oliver was ninth, the lowest billing of
her career. As Norma, a self-assured young woman, to whom the secondary male
lead Steve (Eddie Fisher) proposes after realizing the pointlessness of carrying
a torch for Taylor's character, Oliver's plain-spoken, plain-dressed personality
was a total opposite of her previous characterization as the hypnotically
enticing and alluring Dorissa Dinell. In this relatively minor supporting role,
she shared only one brief scene with Elizabeth Taylor and her makeup and
hairstyle were apparently designed to seem rather non-competitively down-to-earth.
The subsequent three-year period between 1960 and 1963 saw Oliver tackle a busy
schedule of over thirty guest star appearances in primetime network series as
well as a fourth feature film assignment, which cast her in the role of
psychiatric nurse Cathy Clark, one of the mental-health-care professionals
depicted in Warner Brothers 1963 multi-character hospital melodrama The
Caretakers. Robert Stack, Polly Bergen and Joan Crawford were top-billed, along
with two stars of the studio's 1960-62 TV detective series Surfside 6, Diane
McBain and Van Williams. In the film's tangential plotline, however, Williams'
doctor character is drawn to Oliver, as evidenced by their only personal scene
together, a brief dinner sequence. The Caretakers' opening credits list fourteen
players, with Oliver's name appearing last, directly behind Robert Vaughn. The
mitigating factor is that each of those last two names is alone on the screen,
giving them special prominence. In contrast, the end credits show a cameo-shaped
close-up of the face of each cast member, in ascending order of prominence. In
this definitive list, Oliver's face and name are followed by those of eight
other performers, thus effectively consigning her to another ninth billing.
Name: Susan Oliver
Birth name: Charlotte Gercke
Born: 13 February 1932 New York City
Died: 10 May 1990 Woodland Hills, California, United States
Susan Oliver (February 13, 1932 - May 10, 1990), stage name of Charlotte Gercke,
was an Emmy-nominated American actress, television director and a record-setting
aviator.
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.
At the end of World War II, George Gercke joined the United States Information
Agency and in 1946 was posted to Japan as a supervisor overseeing news
dissemination and instruction in democratic institutions during the U. S.
occupation. While living with her father, Charlotte studied at Tokyo
International College in 1948-49 and developed a lifelong interest in Japanese
society and its absorption of American pop culture.
Upon coming back from Japan in June 1949, she joined her mother in Southern
California, where Ruth Hale Oliver was in the process of becoming a well-known
Hollywood astrologer. Surrounded by the trappings of show business, she made a
decision to embark upon a career as an actress and chose the stage name Susan
Oliver.
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.
1957 was a banner year for Oliver, including Broadway, numerous TV shows and a
starring role in a movie. She began the year with an important 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.
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 the October 30, 1957 Wagon Train
and the title role of "Country Cousin", an installment of Father Knows Best,
broadcast on March 5, 1958.
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
Brothers in December on the bottom half of a double bill. It is the only
motion picture on which Oliver received first billing.
At the close of the year, Oliver returned to New York, appearing in Robert Alan
Aurthur's "The Thundering Wave", the December 12, 1957 broadcast of the
prestigious live drama series Playhouse 90. Her performance in the John
Frankenheimer-directed teleplay was well-received and she was invited to
Playhouse 90 two more times, March 26, 1959 and January 21, 1960.
As the next year began, Oliver continued to be a part of the Golden Age of TV
Drama, acting in the February 26, 1958 episode of Kraft Television Theatre and "The
Woman Who Turned to Salt", the June 16, 1958 installment of Suspicion, an hour-long
suspense anthology series produced by Alfred Hitchcock. Oliver's entry, directed
by Robert Stevens, also starred Michael Rennie along with Hitchcock's daughter,
Patricia.
In mid-1958, Oliver began rehearsals for a co-starring role in Patate, her
second Broadway play. Its 7-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 Oliver's last Broadway appearance.
Oliver spent the remainder of her career in Hollywood, going on to play in more
than one hundred television shows, five made-for-TV movies, as well as twelve
additional theatrical features. She appeared in three more episodes of Wagon
Train, four episodes of The Virginian, three episodes each of Adventures in
Paradise, Route 66 and Dr. Kildare, as well as "Never Wave Goodbye", a
critically-praised October 8 October 15, 1963 two-part episode of The Fugitive.
On April 12, 1961 she appeared in an episode of The Naked City, "A Memory of
Crying".
She was fourth-billed in her second theatrical feature, 1959's The Gene Krupa
Story. The film gave her the meaty femme fatale role of Dorissa Dinell, a
beautiful big-band singer who seduces up-and-coming drum virtuoso Gene Krupa (1909-1973),
played by Sal Mineo, from the faithful girl who truly loves him (Susan Kohner)
into a high life of partying and marijuana smoking. The fictional Dinell was
based on a number of women in Krupa's life, but reviewers primarily noted that
Oliver had the film's juiciest dialogue.
Of the ten players listed in the opening credits of her next movie, the 1960
Elizabeth Taylor vehicle BUtterfield 8, Oliver was ninth, the lowest billing of
her career. As Norma, a self-assured young woman, to whom the secondary male
lead Steve (Eddie Fisher) proposes after realizing the pointlessness of carrying
a torch for Taylor's character, Oliver's plain-spoken, plain-dressed personality
was a total opposite of her previous characterization as the hypnotically
enticing and alluring Dorissa Dinell. In this relatively minor supporting role,
she shared only one brief scene with Elizabeth Taylor and her makeup and
hairstyle were apparently designed to seem rather non-competitively down-to-earth.
The subsequent three-year period between 1960 and 1963 saw Oliver tackle a busy
schedule of over thirty guest star appearances in primetime network series as
well as a fourth feature film assignment, which cast her in the role of
psychiatric nurse Cathy Clark, one of the mental-health-care professionals
depicted in Warner Brothers 1963 multi-character hospital melodrama The
Caretakers. Robert Stack, Polly Bergen and Joan Crawford were top-billed, along
with two stars of the studio's 1960-62 TV detective series Surfside 6, Diane
McBain and Van Williams. In the film's tangential plotline, however, Williams'
doctor character is drawn to Oliver, as evidenced by their only personal scene
together, a brief dinner sequence. The Caretakers' opening credits list fourteen
players, with Oliver's name appearing last, directly behind Robert Vaughn. The
mitigating factor is that each of those last two names is alone on the screen,
giving them special prominence. In contrast, the end credits show a cameo-shaped
close-up of the face of each cast member, in ascending order of prominence. In
this definitive list, Oliver's face and name are followed by those of eight
other performers, thus effectively consigning her to another ninth billing.