Susan Anspach

Susan Florence Anspach was an American actress born on November 23, 1942, in Queens, New York City, who worked across stage, film, and television until her death on April 2, 2018. Her father, Renald Anspach, was a World War II Army veteran and factory worker of German-Jewish and English descent. Her mother, Gertrude, née Kehoe, was a secretary and former singer of Scottish and Irish ancestry. The two met at the 1939 New York World's Fair, a union that Anspach's paternal grandfather opposed strongly enough that he disowned his son. Following the death of the great-aunt who had raised her, Anspach returned to her parents' home, which she later described as abusive, and she ran away at age 15. With assistance from a Roman Catholic organization, she was placed with a family in Harlem.

Anspach graduated from William Cullen Bryant High School in Long Island City in 1960 and received a full scholarship to the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where she studied music and drama. Her professional debut came in Thornton Wilder's one-act play Pullman Car Hiawatha at a summer theater in Maryland. After completing her studies, she returned to New York City to pursue her acting career. She appeared on Broadway in 1965 in And Things That Go Bump in the Night. That same year she also appeared off-Broadway in A View from the Bridge alongside Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, and Dustin Hoffman. She additionally played Sheila, the female lead in the musical Hair, which ran for 45 performances at the Cheetah Theatre, and worked with Al Pacino in a production at the Actors Studio.

Anspach first gained wide attention through the 1970 film Five Easy Pieces, directed by Bob Rafelson and starring Jack Nicholson. She subsequently appeared in a supporting role in Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam in 1972 and took a more prominent part in Paul Mazursky's romantic comedy Blume in Love in 1973, which also featured George Segal and Kris Kristofferson. She had originally been cast as country singer Barbara Jean in Robert Altman's 1975 ensemble film Nashville, but her salary request exceeded the production's budget and she was replaced by Ronee Blakley. Over the course of her screen career, Anspach appeared in 19 feature films and eight television movies, including Blue Monkey in 1987 and Blood Red in 1989, as well as the 1981 film Montenegro. She was also featured in two television series, The Yellow Rose and The Slap Maxwell Story with Dabney Coleman, and guest-starred in the NBC anthology series Love Story in 1973 in the episode "All My Tomorrows."

In her personal life, Anspach had a daughter, Catherine Curry, born October 15, 1968, with Hair cast member Steve Curry, and a son, Caleb Goddard, born September 26, 1970, with Jack Nicholson. She married actor Mark Goddard in June 1970, and Goddard adopted both children; the couple divorced in October 1978. Anspach later married musician Sherwood Ball, son of musician and entrepreneur Ernie Ball, in 1982, and that marriage ended in divorce in 1988. She was active in social causes, marching with United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez, protesting the apartheid system in South Africa, and advocating for human rights in Central America. Anspach died of heart failure at her home in Los Angeles at the age of 75.