For Susan Peters, the Television Anchor, see Susan Peters (TV Anchor)

Susan Peters (TV anchor)

Susan Peters is a main anchor on KAKE-TV, the ABC affiliate in Wichita, Kansas.Susan graduated from Western Illinois University with a B.A. in Communications.-Career history:...

Susan Peters (July 3, 1921 – October 23, 1952) was an American stage, film and television actress.

Early life

Peters was born Suzanne Carnahan in Spokane, Washington

Spokane, Washington

Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...

. First contracted by Warner Brothers, she subsequently began working for MGM Studios after completing high school. Her first job was to read with potential actors in their screen tests. Before long she had impressed studio executives with her own talent, and they began casting her in films.

Career

For the first two years she used her given name and played small, often uncredited parts in films such as Meet John Doe

Meet John Doe

Meet John Doe is a 1941 American comedy drama film directed and produced by Frank Capra, and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The film is about a "grassroots" political campaign created unwittingly by a newspaper columnist and pursued by a wealthy businessman. It became a box office hit...

(1941) before adopting her stage name. But her beguiling acting in a supporting role in the MGM programmer Tish

Tish

Tish may refer to:* Tish , a Hasidic gathering of Hassidim around their Rebbe* Tish Jones, a recurring fictional character in the television series Doctor Who...

resulted in a studio contract. Her first substantial role, in Random Harvest (1942), earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...

 nomination.

Further impressed, MGM began to groom her for starring roles, casting her in several lesser productions that allowed her to learn her craft. A starring role in Song of Russia

Song of Russia

Song of Russia is a 1944 American war film made and distributed by MGM Studios. The picture was credited as being directed by Gregory Ratoff, though Ratoff collapsed near the end of the five-month production, and was replaced by László Benedek, who completed principal photography; the credited...

(1943) earned her critical acclaim, but the film was not a commercial success. However, in 1944 she was one of ten actors who were elevated from "featured player" status to the studio's official "star" category; the others included Esther Williams

Esther Williams

Esther Jane Williams is a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star.Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team...

, Laraine Day

Laraine Day

Laraine Day was an American actress and a former MGM contract star.-Career:Born La Raine Johnson in Roosevelt, Utah, to an affluent Mormon family, she later moved to California where she began her acting career with the Long Beach Players...

, Kathryn Grayson

Kathryn Grayson

Kathryn Grayson was an American actress and operatic soprano singer.From the age of twelve, Grayson trained as an opera singer. She was under contract to MGM by the early 1940s, soon establishing a career principally through her work in musicals...

, Van Johnson

Van Johnson

Van Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II....

, Margaret O'Brien

Margaret O'Brien

Margaret O'Brien is an American film and stage actress. Although her film career as a leading character was brief, she was one of the most popular child actors in cinema history...

, Ginny Simms

Ginny Simms

Ginny Simms was an American Popular Singer and film actress. She labeled with Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Jo Stafford and others. Born in San Antonio, Texas, she sang with big bands and worked as MGM contract player film actress.She appeared in 11 movies from 1939 to 1951, when she...

, Robert Walker

Robert Walker

-Creative arts:*Robert Walker , American actor*Robert Walker , English portrait painter*Rob Walker , Australian poet*Robert Joseph Walker , Australian Aboriginal poet*Robert W...

, Gene Kelly

Gene Kelly

Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...

, and George Murphy

George Murphy

George Lloyd Murphy was an American dancer, actor, and politician.-Life and career:He was born in New Haven, Connecticut of Irish Catholic extraction, the son of Michael Charles "Mike" Murphy, athletic trainer and coach, and Nora Long. He was educated at Peddie School, Trinity-Pawling School, and...

. An official portrait taken of MGM's contracted players during this period prominently features Peters sharing the front row with the head of the studio himself, Louis B. Mayer

Louis B. Mayer

Louis Burt Mayer born Lazar Meir was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its golden years. Known always as Louis B...

, and alongside such actors as James Stewart

James Stewart (actor)

James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...

, Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney is an American film actor and entertainer whose film, television, and stage appearances span nearly his entire lifetime. He has won multiple awards, including an Honorary Academy Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award...

, Margaret Sullavan

Margaret Sullavan

Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan started her career on the stage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in Only Yesterday...

, Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

, Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...

, and Greer Garson

Greer Garson

Greer Garson, CBE was a British-born actress who was very popular during World War II, being listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top ten box office draws in 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946. As one of MGM's major stars of the 1940s, Garson received seven Academy Award...

.

Injury and subsequent death

Peters was married to the actor Richard Quine

Richard Quine

Richard Quine was an American stage, film, and radio actor and film director.Quine was born in Detroit. He made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Very Warm for May in 1939 and appeared in My Sister Eileen the following year...

 on November 7, 1943. The couple adopted a son named Timothy Richard Quine. Peters and her husband were duck hunting on January 1, 1945 when a rifle accidentally discharged, causing a bullet to be lodged in her spine

Spinal cord

The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain . The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system...

. The accident left her permanently paralyzed from the waist down

Paraplegia

Paraplegia is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek: παραπληγίη "half-striking". It is usually the result of spinal cord injury or a congenital condition such as spina bifida that affects the neural elements of the spinal canal...

, requiring her to use a wheelchair for mobility. Her mother, who had been maintaining a bedside vigil during her stay in the hospital, died later in December 1945. Nevertheless, Peters attempted to continue her acting career.

MGM continued to pay her salary, but, unable to find suitable projects, Peters subsequently left the studio. She returned to the screen in the lead role in Columbia's

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

 The Sign of the Ram

The Sign of the Ram

The Sign of the Ram is an American film noir directed by John Sturges and written by Charles Bennett, based on a novel written by Margaret Ferguson. The drama features Susan Peters, Alexander Knox, among others.-Plot:The story tells of Leah St...

(1948), but the film failed to win an audience. A starring role as a lawyer in the 1951 television series Miss Susan

Miss Susan

Miss Susan is a daytime drama which aired on NBC from March 12 to December 28, 1951. The show, originating from Philadelphia and later retitled Martinsville, U.S.A., aired for fifteen minutes at 3:00 p.m. ET on weekdays...

was also unsuccessful. She toured in stage productions of The Glass Menagerie

The Glass Menagerie

The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...

and The Barretts of Wimpole Street

The Barretts of Wimpole Street

The Barretts of Wimpole Street is a 1934 American film depicting the real-life romance between poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning , despite the opposition of her father Edward Moulton-Barrett . The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture...

, and her performances were highly regarded, but her disability made her a difficult actress to cast.

Her career faltered, and after she and her husband parted in May 1948, Peters suffered from depression

Clinical depression

Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

. Her health continued to deteriorate until her death at age 31 in Visalia, California

Visalia, California

Visalia is a Central California city situated in the heart of California’s agricultural San Joaquin Valley, approximately southeast of San Francisco and north of Los Angeles...

, from kidney disease

Kidney

The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...

 and pneumonia

Pneumonia

Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

 complicated by anorexia nervosa

Anorexia nervosa

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...

. Peters left her estate to her former husband.

For her contribution to motion pictures, Susan Peters has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...

 at 1601 Vine Street

Vine Street

Vine is a street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California that runs north-south from Melrose Avenue up past Hollywood Boulevard. The intersection of Hollywood and Vine was once a symbol of Hollywood itself...

.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1940	Susan and God Susan and God Susan and God is a 1940 comedy-drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Joan Crawford and Fredric March in a story about a matron who finds religion. The screenplay by Anita Loos was based upon a 1937 play by Rachel Crothers. The film was directed by George Cukor and produced by Hunt...	Party Guest	Uncredited
1940	The Man Who Talked Too Much	Bit role	Uncredited
1940	Young America Flies	One of Jack's girlfriends	Uncredited
1940	Money and the Woman	Depositor	Uncredited
1940	Santa Fe Trail Santa Fe Trail (film) Santa Fe Trail is a 1940 western film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The film was one of the top-grossing films of the year, being the seventh Flynn-de Havilland collaboration. The film also has nothing to do with its namesake, the famed Santa Fe Trail...	Charlotte Davis	Credited as Suzanne Carnahan
1941	The Strawberry Blonde The Strawberry Blonde -Cast:* James Cagney as T. L. 'Biff' Grimes* Olivia de Havilland as Amy Lind* Rita Hayworth as Virginia Brush* Alan Hale as William 'Old Man' Grimes* Jack Carson as Hugo Barnstead* George Tobias as Nicholas Pappalas* Una O'Connor as Mrs...	Girl	Uncredited
1941	Here Comes Happiness	Miss Brown	Uncredited
1941	Meet John Doe Meet John Doe Meet John Doe is a 1941 American comedy drama film directed and produced by Frank Capra, and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The film is about a "grassroots" political campaign created unwittingly by a newspaper columnist and pursued by a wealthy businessman. It became a box office hit...	Autograph Hound	Uncredited
1941	Scattergood Pulls the Strings	Ruth Savage
1941	Three Sons o' Guns	Mary Tyler
1942	Personalities		Uncredited
1942	The Big Shot The Big Shot The Big Shot is a crime drama film starring Humphrey Bogart as a crime boss and Irene Manning as the woman with whom he falls in love.-Cast:*Humphrey Bogart as Joseph "Duke" Berne*Irene Manning as Lorna Fleming*Richard Travis as George Anderson...	Ruth Carter
1942	Tish	Cora Edwards Bowzer
1942	Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant	Mrs. Howard Allwinn Young
1942	Random Harvest	Kitty	Nominated: Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
1942	Andy Hardy's Double Life	Sue, Wainwright Coed on Train
1943	Assignment in Brittany	Anne Pinot
1943	Young Ideas Young Ideas Young Ideas is a 1943 American romantic comedy film directed by Jules Dassin and starring Susan Peters, Herbert Marshall, Mary Astor and Elliott Reid.-Plot:...	Susan Evans
1944	Song of Russia Song of Russia Song of Russia is a 1944 American war film made and distributed by MGM Studios. The picture was credited as being directed by Gregory Ratoff, though Ratoff collapsed near the end of the five-month production, and was replaced by László Benedek, who completed principal photography; the credited...	Nadya Stepanova
1945	Keep Your Powder Dry Keep Your Powder Dry Keep Your Powder Dry is a 1945 drama film starring Lana Turner, Susan Peters, and Laraine Day. The film was directed by Edward Buzzell and written by George Bruce and Mary C...	Ann "Annie" Darrison
1948	The Sign of the Ram The Sign of the Ram The Sign of the Ram is an American film noir directed by John Sturges and written by Charles Bennett, based on a novel written by Margaret Ferguson. The drama features Susan Peters, Alexander Knox, among others.-Plot:The story tells of Leah St...	Leah St. Aubyn
1951	Miss Susan Miss Susan Miss Susan is a daytime drama which aired on NBC from March 12 to December 28, 1951. The show, originating from Philadelphia and later retitled Martinsville, U.S.A., aired for fifteen minutes at 3:00 p.m. ET on weekdays...	Susan Martin	Unknown episodes

External links