Susanna Foster

Suzanne DeLee Flanders Larson (Susanna Foster) (born December 6, 1924) is an American film actress.

Foster was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Minneapolis, Minn. and taken to Hollywood at the age of twelve by MGM, who sent her to school and groomed her for an acting and singing career. Two of her classmates at school were Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. MGM offered her the lead in 'National Velvet' which she declined because there 'wasn't any singing in it'. This in part, led to MGM dropping her. It later would become Elizabeth Taylor's break-out role, She was soon signed by Paramount where she went on to make "The Great Victor Herbert" (1939) opposite Mary Martin and Allan Jones. After seeing Foster in 'The Great Victor Herbert', William Randolph Hearst flew her to his 67,000 acre estate 'Wyntoon' for a private recital for him and Marion Davies. The following year for Paramount there was her attention grabbing roles in 'There's Magic in Music' also opposite Jones and 'Glamour Boy' opposite Jackie Cooper and then Universal, where she became an overnight sensation portraying the ingénue in the wildly popular 1943 film version of the gothic melodrama 'Phantom of the Opera'. The film garnered two academy awards and was Universal's biggest money-maker that year. In the following twenty two months, she starred in a half-dozen motion pictures but despite a meteoric rise that delivered wondrous prosperity to her poverty-stricken family and a dozen movies for Universal and Paramount on her resume, she abruptly quit the film business in 1945. She soon would attempt to rescue her two younger teenage sisters from am abusive alcoholic mother by selling her mink coat and renting Jean Arthur's house on the Monterrey peninsula. Desperate to hold onto their star, Universal sought to make her dream of grand opera come true, financing a six-month tour of a post war Europe in 1946 with Diva Dusolinna Giannini. On her return from Europe she was pressed by Universal to appear as guest soloist for the White House Press Photographer’s Ball with President Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt in attendance. After a singular performance, Truman and Roosevelt would praise Foster with their turn at the microphone. She shared the table with Roosevelt, Truman and his daughter Margaret. With Margaret being only ten months Foster’s senior and an aspiring singer herself, she was thrilled to meet the musical guest.

Back in New York, she reluctantly accepted the lead role in the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera’s production of “Naughty Marietta” headed by Rodgers and Hammerstein associate Edwin Lester. Soon after this limited production she married her leading man Wilbur 'Wib' Evans, a renowned baritone 20 years her senior. The couple performed in operettas and stage musicals, touring extensively. After a debilitating and tragic miscarriage their first son ‘Michael’ was born 9 weeks premature where the child was nearly lost. Evans was soon chosen as Mary Martin’s co-star in London’s “South Pacific”, the show that gave Sean Connery his start as a dancing and singing sailor. During the London engagement is when their second son was born, brought into the world by Queen Elizabeth’s doctor, John Peel, who also attended in the births of others to the royal family, including Prince Charles and Princess Anne. ‘Philip’ was named in honor of the Queen’s husband Prince Philip, to celebrated British fanfare. After eight years Foster abruptly left the marriage, telling her husband 'I never really loved you'. Evans was devastated by this decision and after many attempts at having her reconsider, he would eventually forsake his two sons as well, dooming any promise and happiness this celebrated family once had.

Foster would work everyday of the week at three menial jobs trying desperately to make a home for the children she wanted so badly, straining to hold together their tiny apartment on West 82nd St of the upper west side of Manhattan. Both of her boys would eventually turn to heroin, navigating through overdose and insanity from within their home, to the vast concrete jungle that they sadly knew so well. As her family and their little apartment was imploding, Foster would write letter after letter, plead to any judge who would listen, for help from the callous and embittered father of her two boys, as he sat in the chair of ‘Deputy Head of Entertainment’ in his own imploding environ,…Saigon, Vietnam.

Foster returned to L.A. via a one-way Greyhound bus in 1974, fantasizing a magical Hollywood comeback. Both boys would follow her Svengali-like trail, firmly immersed in their mother's day-of-rapture-comeback that was sure to be. Almost a decade later, she was living in a car until a fervent fan invited her to share his two-room apartment, its walls covered with clippings from movie magazines. But the actress’ downward spiral continued.

By age 17, Philip was a male prostitute and drug addict. He died at his mother’s feet at 33.

As of this update by her son Michael (July 29 2008)Foster resides at The Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey. Her son Michael David Evans currently resides in Sebastian, Florida. Susanna's two grandchildren are Brittney June Evans and Eric Michael Evans. Foster's surviving son Michael David Evans can be reached for further questions and inquiries at [e-mail] WWW.YouTube.com/MicahVita

Filmography=

*"The Great Victor Herbert" (1939)
*"There's Magic in Music" (1940)
*"Glamour Boy" (1941)
*"Star Spangled Rhythm" (1942)
*"Phantom of the Opera" (1943) starring Claude Rains
*"Top Man" (1943)
*"This Is the Life" (1944)
*"The Climax" (1944)
*"Bowery to Broadway" (1944)
*"Frisco Sal" (1945)
*"That Night with You" (1945)
*"Detour" (1992)
*"" (2000) (documentary)

External links

*imdb name|0288078