Susan Watson

Susan Watson (born December 17, 1938) is an American actress and singer.

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Watson was one of five children of a geologist/geophysicist and a dance instructor. From an early age her life was filled with the music of Gilbert and Sullivan and Rodgers and Hammerstein. As a teenager she performed in summer stock before being accepted at the Juilliard School in Manhattan. Her studies there were interrupted when she accepted a role in the West End production of "West Side Story".

Stopping in Paris after the show's run, Watson met her future sister-in-law, who was dating Tom Jones and urged her to contact him when she arrived in New York City. Jones and partner Harvey Schmidt cast her in the lead role in their one-act musical "The Fantasticks", which ran for a week at Barnard College's Minor Latham Theater while the creative team tried to raise financing for an off-Broadway production. While biding her time, Watson appeared in a revue entitled "Follies of 1910", in which she was noticed by Gower Champion, who was in the process of casting "Bye Bye Birdie", and he offered her a role. She stayed with the Broadway production throughout its entire run, finally returning to "The Fantasticks" when it was televised by the Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1964.

Following a national tour of "Carnival", Watson returned to New York to play opposite Robert Preston in "Ben Franklin in Paris", in a Lincoln Center revival of "Carousel" with John Raitt and Jerry Orbach, a New York City Center staging of "Where's Charley?", and the short-lived musical "A Joyful Noise" (again with Raitt), for which she was nominated for a Tony Award.

Watson reunited with Jones and Schmidt for "Celebration" and played in "Beggar on Horseback" in repertory at Lincoln Center before taking on the title role in the smash hit "No, No Nanette" with Ruby Keeler.

Watson's television credits include several episodes of the "Bell Telephone Hour" and guest appearances on "Newhart", "St. Elsewhere", "Wings", and "General Hospital". She is one of dozens of Broadway musical performers participating in the documentary "Broadway: Beyond the Golden Age", now in post-production for a 2007 broadcast on PBS.

Watson is a founding member of the Musical Theatre Guild, a group of professionals who perform musicals at the Pasadena Playhouse. She and her husband, producer Norton Wright, live in Sherman Oaks, California. They are the parents of two adult sons.

External links

* [http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?id=69017/ Internet Broadway Database listing]