Suzanne Grossman

Suzanne Grossmann (December 21, 1937 – August 19, 2010) was a Swiss-American actress, playwright, and television writer born in Basel, Switzerland. She pursued her education across multiple countries, living and studying in Brazil, Canada, and the United States before earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. She was among the first graduates of the National Theatre School of Canada in 1963.

Grossmann's Broadway career spanned from 1966 to 1969 and encompassed both classical and contemporary works. She made her Broadway debut in James Goldman's The Lion in Winter, taking on the role of Alais. In 1968, she appeared as Roxane opposite Robert Symonds in a revival of Cyrano de Bergerac, and later that same year joined the cast of a revival of George Kelly's The Show-Off, which starred Helen Hayes. Her Broadway work also included a production of Private Lives, in which she played Sybil Chase alongside Brian Bedford and Tammy Grimes as Elyot and Amanda.

Beyond performing, Grossmann established herself as a translator and adaptor of stage works. Collaborating with fellow actor Paxton Whitehead, she translated and adapted Georges Feydeau's farce There's One in Every Marriage for the Broadway stage in 1971, followed by Feydeau's Chemin de Fer. Her additional adaptations included Alpha and Omega, La Vie Parisienne, Number Our Days, and A Flea in Her Ear, with productions mounted by the Chelsea Theater Center in Manhattan, the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Grossmann subsequently directed her energies toward television writing, contributing Canadian Broadcasting Corporation teleplays for Showstopper, Nellie, and the Great Performances episode Sarah in 1976. She also wrote more than 100 episodes of the long-running soap opera Ryan's Hope. Her television acting credits included the CBC anthology series Festival from 1963 to 1964, the role of Miep Gies in the ABC production of The Diary of Anne Frank in 1967, and the role of Cleopatra in the three-part documentary series Shaw vs. Shakespeare.

Grossmann was married to Robert Scales, who served as a dean of the theater school at the University of Southern California. She died on August 19, 2010, at the age of 72, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.