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Welcome to everybody with Angela Williamson and Innovation, Arts, education and public affairs program.

Everybody, with Angela Williamson is made possible by viewers like you.

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And now your host, doctor Angela Williamson.

I'm delighted to welcome actress, singer, and photographer Susan Lanier to our conversation tonight.

Suzanne.

I mean, the way you are dressed.

I know this is the main reason you have this huge following today.

Thank you.

But we are going to because our viewers are saying we know that phase, but we have a little special connection all about PBS.

So I want our our viewers to get to hear the story of how Susan gets to PBS.

Our gosh, I love PBS.

I think we have to preserve PBS.

It's so important.

But, and, let's see, the late or early early 70s, I was in New York, and I had been doing acting.

I'd gone to NYU, and, I had a son, and I was, in a place in my life where I needed to go back home, which was Dallas.

And I went to Dallas, and needed to get a job.

And I got a job when I was in my very early 20s.

I was 21 or something like that at the PBS station that was managed by Bob Wilson.

Owen and Luke Wilson's father.

And so he hired me to be a script typist and a, and a, a production assistant.

And that's kind of what I started doing.

And, and then but I was all into music.

And so they ran out of they were firing people, but I didn't have a very important job.

And so they said, you go over there and interview Freddie King.

I mean, the great Freddie King, right?

And I did a great interview, and he loved me and we became instant friends.

And so then they started having me interview other people on camera for the for the station.

Freddie actually played, a show that I created called Three Stage, which became later Austin City Limits.

But I had this idea.

I said, let's do a music show because I love music so much.

And Bob Wilson went with that.

And so, I, so I and went down to Luckenbach.

Okay.

They sent me down to Luke and Bart to scout Willie Nelson and try to get him to do the show, and his career wasn't at where it was.

I mean, he wasn't who he is now, right?

Okay.

And so one of my cameramen at the station in Dallas was Mickey Raphael, who became Willie's really agreed to do the show.

And while he was on stage, I said, Mickey, if you heard really him, you heard Mickey play the harmonica.

And and he said, no.

And Mickey Raphael got up and started jamming, and he never returned to PBS.

He went on the road with Willie Nelson there on out.

But, I then wrote a little project, glory, in this magazine.

And the Corporation of Public Broadcasting had invited all the female are not female, but all the stations to present a pilot idea for a woman's show.

Oh, I said, let's make it a variety show and put music in it.

And so I, did some research and found, Christa Lee Jordan and, who actually became the real Norma Rae.

I mean, they made a big movie about Christopher Jordan.

Her real name, Norma Rae's real name is Chris Daly.

Jordan.

And I found this in article about, J.P.

Stevens.

You know, company that she worked for that was not union.

And she was down there trying to unionize.

Yes.

And so I pitched that to Gloria Steinem, and and she went, this is we're doing this.

So I worked for a year in New York at 80.

I got transferred to New York by PBS to work with Gloria Steinem for one year on this pilot, and it was called Woman Alive.

And, it became a series.

And Gloria said, you got to stay on and do the series.

And I said, no, I have to act.

I'm going to Hollywood.

And she went, you're making a big mistake.

And I said, nope, I'm going to go be an actress.

And she said, okay.

And I worked for PBS for 2 or 3, two and a half years.

Now at this time, though, because you had sometimes life happens and you make adjustments, but really, your heart's desire never is far from what you want to do.

I mean, in the back of your mind, you're having these great experiences.

You are.

You just mentioned a lot of names of people who are icons that our viewers recognize today, and I'm sure they're like, me, just the mouth is hanging open because, wow, I mean, you just brought back so many memories, but you're doing this incredible work.

However, you're not truly doing what you feel you're meant to do.

Correct?

Correct.

But you have Gloria telling you, and we all love Gloria telling you you're making the worst mistake of your life.

I mean, how do you go against Gloria?

She understood she was a lot of fun back then.

She still is, by the way.

But, she understood the passion to go do what I really wanted to do.

You know, I. I had very long hours as a producer at PBS.

Those hours?

Long hours.

And I have a son, and I felt like he was just so little.

He was 3 or 4, and I wasn't spending enough time with them.

And I said, I want to be a mom.

I want to be there for him.

I don't want to be working all the time.

And, from early in the morning to late at night, no, nothing about that.

And so and, she got it and I said, I think, and I had done a play with Pat Paulson from Laugh-In.

Yeah.

And, his agent manager, Ron Mason, had seen me on the road, and he said, you need to be in LA doing comedy.

And I was just.

I love doing comedy.

That's why I came here, was to do comedy.

And, so I had a great agent when I got here, so.

And representation and guest starred on Happy Days the first week I got here, which is so amazing when because we've met before and just set higher by.

But then of course, I had to just do my deep dive because I knew your face, I knew it, and when I did my research, I mean, the 70s we think is iconic for situation comedies and to be able to step into that role.

And you moved across several really famous comedies that we admire today.

I mean, how did you do that, Suzanne?

Well, I think I you know, I'm an actor who likes to give my representation credit.

Please.

You know, I have a great manager now, Eileen O'Farrell.

I love her and she, great agent H-e-b and, Ferrell, agency.

And, you know, if you don't have an agent who work for you, I think it's a really, really hard.

And and I had great representation at the time.

Ron Mason was a great agent.

And, opened those doors.

Another agent, Steve Tishman, I'd like to give him credit because nobody does Hollywood by themselves.

And you have to have, you have to know the right people, and you have to have those people behind you pushing for you and and trying to get you through the door so that people will give you, you see what you can do.

And you you have to deliver the goods.

Yes, you have to deliver the goods.

But I think just moving out here and not having anybody helping you is, or representing you is next to impossible.

Not impossible with the internet now, I think it might be easier to launch, some kind of, if you become an influencer.

But we didn't have that then.

We didn't even have cell phones.

I know our car phones from.

I had no car phones.

I remember the first one, but we had wonderful cars that were built like tanks.

So.

But I mean, you you're out here a few weeks, you get on happy days.

You had this for your car roll.

Welcome back Carter.

And we're still talking about it today.

I mean, there was a feature about 50 years of that show.

I mean, you moved from one successful show to the other.

It's representation, but it's also Suzanne and your craft.

I have always studied acting.

If I, I all during Covid, I worked with, people.

I did scenes with people from the Actors Studio in New York on zoom, and, I, I worked when I was a young girl at the Actors Studio.

HB studio, I worked at least, Sanford Meisner.

I worked with, Susan Strasberg was a friend of mine.

And so I had I, I did my studying and I majored in, drama in high school.

And so by the time I got to NYU and, I because I went to New York before I got back to Dallas, I, had done a lot of classical roles.

So I think to do anything, even to this day, I will not only teach acting, which I do on zoom, but I also always I'm in a group studying, are on a project studying, are working with some kind of coach because I think it's important to keep up.

You continue to grow even when you're my age, which is really old, you know, you continue to learn.

You know, I'm doing music.

My focus is music right now.

I practice at least an hour and a half a day, at least a day.

So, if I'm going to go out and and do gigs, I want to be prepared.

And you're talking about being prepared.

And you mentioned the Actors Studio and and our viewers have probably heard it before, but I would love for you just to explain the detail and how pivotal the Actors Studio is to some of the greatest work we see today.

Well, at least Strasberg had come from the Neighborhood Playhouse, originally.

So Meisner and Lee and Food and Stella Adler all were kind of teaching differently.

There all have their own different technique, but I'll kind of say the same thing, you know, to emerge and, you know, all of them had and I studied with all of them.

I almost, they a ways to emerge from who you are into the character that you're playing and, and bring you in there is a piece of me and every character that I've ever played.

There's an aspect of me, I just played a serial killer.

So there's an aspect of me tapping into what to tell me about that right now, tapping into my own rage.

You know, I always wondered that.

How do you keep yourself?

But you're in this role so.

Well, we I when you've lived as long as I have, you have a whole lifetime of experiences, and you have gone through the entire gamut of emotions one can possibly feel.

I've had loss, I've had rage, I've had jealousy.

I've had rejection.

I've had the happiness, you know, elation.

You know, you've got and you just tap into your own memory.

They call it since memory.

But your own memories of those experiences you tap into your own experiences of what those feelings are like.

And being a great observer of other people and their behaviors.

Like if I was going, you know what I love about the internet?

There's a a, a guy I follow, it's called Soft Belly and it shows the people from Skid Row and, and I've learned so much by watching them.

A lot of the women have had terrible childhoods, but there's.

So some of them are so incredibly intelligent and and they're just damaged.

And to I love them and I appreciate them and I appreciate their experience.

And I'm an empath, I suppose.

And so I will take on some of their dysfunction in the characters where I have to play someone dysfunctional.

So but just observing and I started doing that as a kid where I couldn't afford a cab in New York, on the subway, you see everything?

Yes, you see everything.

There's nothing left to the imagination in there.

Yes.

Wow.

Well, you know, nothing left to the imagination.

That's a perfect way to end our first segment.

Thank you for all that you.

We'll be right back.

Come back to hear more from Susie.

That's your life.

Sounds pretty great.

Hey, don't let a buzz ruining buzz driving is drunk driving.

Whoa, whoa.

Eyes forward.

Don't drive.

Distracted.

You know, you need to get folk up this way.

Where are you headed?

Furnace dry creek road.

Don't take your family in there to another mare.

Banana mode.

Gotta stay on the main road.

Now.

You hear?

And a axle snap.

They start good.

Easy pickings.

Some weird is going on.

Calling.

Mayday, mayday.

Stand on your heads with your thumbs up.

There she is, calling.

I'll be helping to pay now.

Nice.

I got that we need a jury.

I'm gonna get those about to kill them all.

Like I said, it's your turn up at the head.

Okay?

You go and get another till I get on.

Welcome back.

Susie.

That was an incredible first segment.

Our viewers are probably wondering, why didn't you talk about this film?

Because I just wanted to hear your background and talk about PBS's The Hills Have Eyes.

I mean, you talked about getting into character.

I mean, at this point, you're filming this in the late 70s, right?

7777 so how did you get into character for this film, or did you know what you were walking into?

And, you know, and I didn't I mean, I, I knew it was a low budget horror movie.

And, and I knew I was up for the lead.

Okay.

And I had done a lot of TV and, you know, and I had done some TV drama.

My passion is always was comedy, but I had done that, and I really was dying.

I had auditioned for Kerry, and, I didn't get it.

And, but, you know, I'm an actress.

That happens.

Yeah.

So, so I got the opportunity, a through, Carol prop and Gus Shermer to meet with Wes Craven, and he said if I wanted.

And he was offering me the role, and, I and it would be starring Susan Lanier.

And I went, okay, I want it.

And I love the script.

And, so my agent said, oh, no, no, it will totally kill your, sitcom thing.

And you, me, you can't switch genres like that.

And horror was not popular.

And in 1976, 77.

Yeah, it was it was kind of considered, you know, no lower rung of a lower level of work, like I'd be.

Yeah.

I'll be I would definitely be.

Oh, there.

If we're lucky, if you're black, you're like, okay, but I said, no, I am going to do this.

I really like Boss Craven.

He was very cool.

And in the initial meeting that we had, and I wanted a movie that says starring Susan Lanier and I and her in hopes of it triggering other films so I did it and that that that's how I got it.

And, and I loved playing and I was playing 16, you know, I was a little older than that, but not much.

Well, and a lot of times when you're in a movie and we look at it and we see, we see why it has such a following today, but also two, it's putting together the right cast.

I mean, did you feel that I always want to ask people, did you feel that you were doing something you might not have known what it was when you're doing because you you were surrounded by this remarkable cast.

Did you feel that maybe there was something more or you just happy to have story season?

To be honest, yes.

I was used to working in the studios where I had my own trailers and dressing rooms and makeup artists and, you know, I had gotten a little pampered and working at the studios.

And so, not spoiled, just, you know, I was used to.

Well, this was a low budget.

Yeah.

And I saw that I had done low budget in New York a little bit, and I knew what the conditions might be, but I didn't know they would be as primitive as they were.

And everybody was in the same trailer.

And I'm going, oh my God, my agent was right.

I should not have done this, you know, whatever.

But I was already under contract and it was a done deal.

And, and, and I was enjoying the times when I'm on camera creating the character.

De Wallace played my sister and we had a very nice friendship going, and I had a very nice friendship with the guy playing my brother, Robert Houston.

And so, the three of us kind of hung out at the, the eve of the cannibal family.

They sort of hung out together, and then the, other family, the American family kind of hang out together.

And so, it, you know, it was it was over a month.

Shoot.

It was around a month.

Shoot.

And and they it took time back then the 16 millimeter I no no no no it wasn't there was no digital in hand or anything.

So, I really wanted to get back to LA and and get back in that realm.

Okay.

Do some theater comedy or whatever, but and it came out and we did the, the tour of it and, and, they asked me to go, you know, from city to city to promote it, the promotion tour.

And, when I got back, it was out and it had gone into the Drive-Ins.

And so I, I got back to LA and I was working on a set, and my girlfriend came over and said, let's go hear Delaney Bramlett play and I went, no, I'm too tired.

And she begged me and I said, okay.

And he had just seen The Hills Have Eyes.

And so, the night before and I walked in and we he came up and he said, you know, I saw you in the movie.

And make a long story short, it became he became my husband.

Yes.

Because he said something to you when you met him?

Yeah.

You tell her I love the way you scream.

I'm going to marry you.

And, I and I went, oh, you're not.

But anyway, it happened, and, so he was such a genius in music, and I already had this incredible passion for music.

I it was easy for me to switch my focus to some degree, to the music being on the set.

I did a few pilots, that I starred in after The Hills Have Eyes.

my theory is go with the flow.

Go, go where the don't try to fight anything.

That's not meant to be.

So the flow was flowed flow kind music.

Yeah.

The flow was to kind of segue into music and having fun and not having the obligation of being on the set so early in the morning and working those hours.

And, and I kind of enjoyed that ride.

I mean, a lot of people say, oh, you know, I do.

You you don't think that, you know, don't you, don't you wish you'd stuck with it full time?

And and I don't know, you know, I like I'd like my life, I like my and the anonymity I do have and and I like and the fans that I do have.

And so, it's kind of a middle of the road and I'm very comfortable place for me is that while you're still producing music today, because you are just releasing a new song, I am and I can't, I can't not write music and, and, and particularly now in my life, my husband has passed away and, my family a lot.

Most of my family is gone.

And so I spend a lot of time by myself.

And when, that's my release, you know, that keeps me from, it just keeps me sane.

And so I, I work writing music.

It's it's pure joy.

And whether people like it or not, that's up to them.

You know, that's for me.

And I put it out there.

And if somebody wants it or wants to buy it, that's cool.

And if they don't, that's cool, you know?

And, you know, I have one regret that I didn't have Janis Joplin's chops or a Christina Aguilera's chops or Whitney Houston's chops, but I do love writing music and performing it.

Okay, so that's spooky love.

Yeah, and that's on Spotify.

Of all of them.

I took them to Apple.

Isaac's book Love Is my new single, and it's out and I hope you like it.

It's for Halloween.

I am totally a Halloween person.

That makes sense.

And then that's why we love you.

Okay, so I want to talk about the song.

I can't believe our time is almost done, but you are an acting coach today and you see a lot of new, wonderful actors coming up.

What is the one advice that you can give to them that you've use to keep yourself going in this wonderful, crazy industry?

You better love it.

You better love it because it's a very difficult.

It's a very difficult path you're taking.

And I teach my students that if if I'm too hard, then you're in the wrong business, because when you get on that set, directors are working really fast these days.

And, you have to be disciplined.

You have to be on time.

A lot of people have have, lost the respect for a call time and, and and you and you have to know how to match your blocking and memorize your lines and how to do improv in case you're working with the director that wants you to improv the scene and you have an hour.

Now, we don't go to the office anymore to audition.

We do it from home for most of them, and you have to learn to have your self-tape and have it slick, because they're not just seeing yours.

They're seeing a thousand other ones for the same role.

And you better stand out.

So it's a hard business.

And I if you, it's always been difficult.

It's always been difficult.

But it's really about constant work, not part time.

You can't do it part time.

If you're not on something, go get in a play.

If you if you're not doing something, produce a short yourself with your iPhone and get it out there.

You have to be motivated and it it can't be part time.

That is great advice Susie.

That was such a wonderful conversation.

I'm so glad you stopped by to talk to.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

It is.

Trust me, it is my pleasure.

Trust me so much and so we'll make sure that you are on Instagram.

You are on Facebook will make sure our viewers can follow you on Instagram.

thank you so much for all of your dedication.

Awesome!

You're welcome.

And even with your dedication, you're giving back to the younger generation and you are just phenomenal.

So thank you, thank you, thank you so much.

And thank you for joining us.

And everybody with Angela Williamson.

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Hi, I'm Angela Williamson, host of everybody with Angela Williamson.

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