Youth

Anton attended Yucaipa High School in Yucaipa, California

Yucaipa, California

Yucaipa is a city located east of San Bernardino, in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 51,367 at the 2010 census, up from 41,207 at the 2000 census...

, and graduated in 1968. After high school, Anton attended San Bernardino Valley College

San Bernardino Valley College

San Bernardino Valley College is a community college located in San Bernardino, California. It is fully accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. The two-year college has an enrollment of approximately 25,000 students and covers...

. She first experienced fame by winning the nearby Miss Redlands and later the Miss California

Miss California

For the state pageant affiliated with Miss USA, see Miss California USAThe Miss California competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of California in the Miss America pageant. Delegates from the states of California, Ohio and Oklahoma have each won the title of Miss...

 beauty contests in 1969 and tied as second runner-up in the 1970 Miss America

Miss America

The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...

 Scholarship Pageant held September 6 that year.

Career

By the mid-1970s, Anton developed a following for her Muriel Cigar commercials where she provocatively sang, "Let Muriel turn you on / That is my desire / Muriel lights a flame in me / Where there's Muriel smoke, there's fire". Later in the 1970s, Anton appeared approximately 30 times on Merv Griffin

Merv Griffin

Mervyn Edward "Merv" Griffin, Jr. was an American television host, musician, actor, and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer who went on to appear in movies and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 Griffin hosted his own talk show, The Merv Griffin Show on Group W Broadcasting...

's TV show. She was frequently seen and heard in television, print and radio ads for the Perfect Sleeper mattress by Serta

Serta

Serta may refer to:* Sertã, a municipality in central Portugal* Serta , a mattress company based in the United States* Serto, the western form of the Syriac alphabet...

. In these ads, she announced her name and sang the company's jingle.

In 1978, ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 gave her and country singer Mel Tillis

Mel Tillis

Lonnie Melvin Tillis , known professionally as Mel Tillis, is an American country music singer. Although he recorded songs since the late 1950s, his biggest success occurred in the 1970s, with a long list of Top 10 hits....

 a summertime variety series, Mel and Susan Together, produced by the Osmond Brothers. The pairing of Anton and Tillis was an unlikely one: he was popular in country music circles but hardly a national household name while Susan was barely known at all. The show disappeared after four weeks; nevertheless, she was later chosen as one of Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine's "Most Promising Faces of 1979."

She later starred in her own variety show, Presenting Susan Anton, Stop Susan Williams (one of three serials in the Cliffhangers series

Cliffhangers (TV series)

Cliffhangers was an American television series that debuted on February 27, 1979 on NBC.Cliffhangers attempted to revive the genre of movie serials in a made-for-TV format. Each hour-long episode was divided into three 20-minute segments featuring different storylines...

), and in the films Goldengirl

Goldengirl

Goldengirl is a 1979 film directed by Joseph Sargent, loosely based on a science-fiction novel by Peter Lear, a pseudonym of Peter Lovesey. The screenplay was by John Kohn, with music by Bill Conti....

, Spring Fever

Spring Fever (1982 film)

----Spring Fever is a 1982 independent film, set in the world of competitive tennis. It was produced with the participation at the Canadian Film Development Corporation and Famous Players Limited.-Plot:...

and Cannonball Run II

Cannonball Run II

See also Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy DashCannonball Run II comedy film featuring Burt Reynolds and an all-star cast, released by Warner Bros. and Golden Harvest...

. She also recorded music, her biggest hit being "Killin' Time" in 1980, a duet with country singer Fred Knoblock

Fred Knoblock

Fred Knoblock is an American country singer-songwriter.Prior to his solo career, Knoblock had been a member of Let's Eat, a 1970s rock band. Knoblock was signed to Scotti Brothers Records in 1980 when he released the song "Why Not Me", which he wrote along with Carson Whitsett...

. The record made Top 10 on the country charts and hit #28 on Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

’s Hot 100. In 1990, Anton appeared on the TV comedy series Night Court

Night Court

Night Court is an American television situation comedy that aired on NBC from January 4, 1984, to May 20, 1992. The setting was the night shift of a Manhattan court, presided over by the young, unorthodox Judge Harold T. "Harry" Stone...

in an episode called "The Talk Show" where she played talk show producer Margo Hunter.

Anton graces the cover of the mass trade paperback edition of "Goldengirl" by Peter Lear (pseudonym for Peter Lovesey) having played the title character in the film version known as "Golden Girl," starring James Coburn

James Coburn

James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...

 and directed by Joseph Sargent.

Anton was the host of the successful "Great Radio City Music Hall Spectacular" show at the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas

Las Vegas Strip

The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...

 for over 5,000 performances until July 31, 2000. She also appeared in the Las Vegas company of the musical Hairspray

Hairspray (musical)

Hairspray is a musical with music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman and a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, based on the 1988 John Waters film Hairspray. The songs include 1960s-style dance music and "downtown" rhythm and blues...

and on Broadway in The Will Rogers Follies, Hurlyburly

Hurlyburly

Hurlyburly is a dark comedy play by David Rabe, first staged in 1984.-Plot:More than three hours long, Hurlyburly focuses on the intersecting lives of several low- to mid-level Hollywood players in the 1980s. Fueled by massive amounts of drugs, they attempt to find some meaning in their isolated,...

and All Shook Up

All Shook Up (musical)

All Shook Up is a jukebox musical with Elvis Presley music, with a book by Joe DiPietro. The story is based on William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.-Production history:...

.

She had a recurring role on the TV series Baywatch

Baywatch

Baywatch is an American action drama series about the Los Angeles County Lifeguards who patrol the beaches of Los Angeles County, California, starring David Hasselhoff. The show ran in its original title and format from 1989 to 1999, sans the 1990-1991 season, of which it was not in production...

from 1992 to 1994 and has appeared as herself on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (2006), The Larry Sanders Show (1993) and It’s Garry Shandling's Show (1987), as well as in several films.

Anton appeared in an episode of Law & Order: SVU which aired on March 31, 2010.

She is scheduled to reprise her role as Velma Von Tussle in 'Hairspray' at the Hollywood Bowl production running Aug.5-7, 2011.

Personal life

She dated English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 film and TV star Dudley Moore

Dudley Moore

Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician.Moore first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the highly popular television...

 with much being made of their height difference. He was 5 feet 2.5 inches (1.59m) tall and she is 5 feet 11 inches (1.80m) tall. Anton married television actor Jeff Lester

Jeff Lester

Jeff Lester is an American actor known for his various television appearances. Among his many performances, Lester played Raymond in a Seinfeld episode called "The Note". Lester played a masseur in the episode who apparently made George Costanza's penis move during a massage he gave him. George...

 on August 15, 1992, her second marriage. She currently resides in Las Vegas

Las Vegas metropolitan area

The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

.

Singles

Year	Single	Chart Positions
		US Country Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...	US Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...	CAN Country
1980	"Killin' Time" (with Fred Knoblock Fred Knoblock Fred Knoblock is an American country singer-songwriter.Prior to his solo career, Knoblock had been a member of Let's Eat, a 1970s rock band. Knoblock was signed to Scotti Brothers Records in 1980 when he released the song "Why Not Me", which he wrote along with Carson Whitsett... )	10	28	39

External links