Susan Clark


Actor
Susan Clark

About

Also Known As
Nora Golding
Birth Place
Sarnia, Ontario, CA
Born
March 08, 1940

Biography

This tall, light-haired Canadian actress rose to prominence portraying two seminal female figures in TV-movie biographies in the mid-1970s. Clark won an Emmy as athlete Babe Didrickson Zaharias in a "Babe" (CBS, 1975) and earned praise and an Emmy nomination as aviation pioneer "Amelia Earhart" (NBC, 1976). Since the early 80s, Clark has often worked in tandem with her husband, former fo...

Family & Companions

Robert Joseph
Husband
Married in the 1970s.
Alex Karras
Husband
Actor. Former professional football player; married in 1980.

Biography

This tall, light-haired Canadian actress rose to prominence portraying two seminal female figures in TV-movie biographies in the mid-1970s. Clark won an Emmy as athlete Babe Didrickson Zaharias in a "Babe" (CBS, 1975) and earned praise and an Emmy nomination as aviation pioneer "Amelia Earhart" (NBC, 1976). Since the early 80s, Clark has often worked in tandem with her husband, former football star Alex Karras. The couple formed Georgian Bay Productions and went on to star alongside child actor Emmanuel Lewis in "Webster" (ABC, 1983-87, syndicated 1987-88). Clark played a socialite/consumer advocate/psychologist who becomes the adoptive mother of a young African American.

Clark studied acting in her native Canada and then at RADA in London, where she made her stage debut. Her film debut was in a decidedly supporting role in the soapy "Banning" (1967), but it earned her a contract at Universal. The actress subsequently played a married woman having an affair with Henry Fonda in "Madigan" (1968), a social worker who was the object of Clint Eastwood's lusting eyes in "Coogan's Bluff" (1968), an upper-crust physician working on the reservation in "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here" (1970), and Mrs. Patroni, wife of Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) and a passenger on a flight being flown by stewardess Karen Black, in "Airport '75" (1974). In 1982, she returned to Canada to do an uproarious comic turn in Bob Clark's "Porky's," as a woman-for-hire who pretends she will sleep with a gaggle of teenaged boys who turns out to be part of a broader practical joke.

The small screen had proved to be a more enduring medium for Clark. She broke into American TV in 1967 on an episode of NBC's "Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre." As part of her Universal contract, she was frequently seen in the early 70s as a guest on studio-produced series, such as "Marcus Welby, M.D.." "Columbo" and "The Bold Ones," and movies, like "Something for a Lonely Man" (NBC). But it took her turns in "Babe" and "Amelia Earhart" to solidify her small screen stardom. She and Karras produced and starred in a handful of TV-movies, including "Jimmy B. and Andre" (CBS, 1980), a proto-"Webster" drama about a black youth taken in by a Caucasian man, and the romantic comedy "Maid in America" (CBS, 1982), with Karras as the hired help of busy lawyer Clark.

After "Webster" went off the air, Clark was less active for several years, but returned in full force in 1994, playing the mother of a young married woman lost in the snow in "Snowbound: The Jim and Jennifer Stolpa Story" (CBS) and co-starring in "Tonya and Nancy: The Inside Story" (NBC) about Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. She also had a starring role as an obstetrician in the Canadian-produced "Butterbox Babies" (shown in the USA on A&E, 1996). That same year, Clark attempted a return to series TV making the ABC pilot "Toe Tags," about life in a morgue.

Life Events

1967

Film acting debut in "Banning"

1967

Made American TV debut in episode of "Bob Hope's Chrysler Theatre"

1968

Made TV-movie debut, "Something for a Lonely Man"

1975

Had breakthough role in TV biopic, "Babe"

1976

Starred in TV-movie "Amelia Earhart"

1979

Made producing debut, "Jimmy B and Andre" (CBS)

1983

With her husband Alex Karras, co-starred in the ABC sitcom "Webster"

1994

Returned to TV-movies in "Snowbound: The Jim and Jennifer Stolpa Story" and "Tonya and Nancy: The Inside Story"

2000

Acted on stage in Los Angeles in "Appearances to the Contrary"

Photo Collections

The Apple Dumpling Gang - Movie Poster
Here is the American one-sheet movie poster for Disney's The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975). One-sheets measured 27x41 inches, and were the poster style most commonly used in theaters.

Videos

Movie Clip

North Avenue Irregulars, The (1979) -- (Movie Clip) He's Not Taking Threats Rev. Hill (Edward Herrmann), baffled by rampant gambling at his church, takes to the air with an ad-libbed crusade, alarming his secretary (Susan Clark), also Patsy Kelly and Douglas Fowley, bookie Harry (Alan Hale Jr.), gangster Roca (Frank Campanella) and parishoners Barbara Harris and Cloris Leachman, in the Walt Disney crime-comedy The North Avenue Irregulars, 1979.
North Avenue Irregulars, The (1979) -- (Movie Clip) God, Are You Home? Opening with Edward Herrmann in a relatively rare lead role, as Presbyterian Rev. Hill, with his kids (Bobby Rolofson, Melora Hardin) arriving at his new church, where the gang of ladies for whom the picture is named are having a crisis, Karen Valentine, Patsy Kelly, Cloris Leachman, Virginia Capers, Barbara Harris and Susan Clark at the fore, in Disney’s The North Avenue Irregulars, 1979.
Madigan (1968) -- (Movie Clip) I'll Meet Your Terms Introducing Henry Fonda as New York police commissioner Russell (title character of the original novel by journalist, playwright and polymath Richard Dougherty), then by voice and phone call James Whitmore as his deputy Kane, and Susan Clark, seems to not be his wife, in director Don Siegel’s Madigan, 1968.
Skin Game (1971) -- (Movie Clip) God Loves You Con men Quincy and Jason (James Garner, Louis Gossett), who work a scam where one sells the other as a slave, arrive in a fictional Kansas town, 1857, where a vote on slavery is imminent, and meet Ginger (Susan Clark), who expresses noble intentions, in Skin Game, 1971.
Skin Game (1971) -- (Movie Clip) Who'll Make An Offer? Because it’s James Garner and Louis Gossett, the viewer might guess it’s a scam, the former in the credit sequence having paraded the latter into a dusty Missouri town, 1857, George Tyne winning the bidding, with foul language, in the popular 1971 comic-Western Skin Game.
Night Moves (1975) -- (Movie Clip) Real Live Detective Director Arthur Penn is well into the narrative as the opening credits roll, Gene Hackman is LA private detective and ex-jock Harry Moseby, Susan Clark his antique-dealer wife, Ben Archibeck her sidekick, in the acclaimed “neo-noir” Night Moves, 1975.

Trailer

Family

George Raymond Golding
Father
Eleanor Almond McNaughton
Mother
Katie Karras
Daughter
Born on January 31, 1980; father, Alex Karra.

Companions

Robert Joseph
Husband
Married in the 1970s.
Alex Karras
Husband
Actor. Former professional football player; married in 1980.

Bibliography