Wonderland Burlesque: Wonderland Burlesque's Down The Rabbit Hole: Susan Tyrell

Sunday, July 13, 2025

Wonderland Burlesque's Down The Rabbit Hole: Susan Tyrell

Wonderland Burlesque's

Down The Rabbit Hole:

Susan Tyrell

Down The Rabbit Hole merely places a spotlight on something slightly unusual that's caught my interest. With the help of Wikipedia, YouTube, and other sites, I gather information and learn something new.

Today, we take a look at the work and history of the rebel actress Susan Tyrell!

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From Wikipedia and other sources:

"Actors have to act, man. Lilies that fester smell fouler than weeds. You get sick. You die inside..." - Susan Tyrell

Susan Tyrrell was an American character actress whose career began in theater in New York City in the 1960s, both on and off-Broadway. She began her film career with 1971's Shoot Out and was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Oma in John Huston's Fat City (1972). In 1978, she received the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Andy Warhol's Bad (1977). Her New York Times obituary described her as "a whiskey-voiced character actress (with a) talent for playing the downtrodden, outré, and grotesque."

Born in San Francisco, California, to a British mother, Gillian Tyrell and an American father, John Belding Creamer, her mother was a socialite and member of the diplomatic corps in China and the Philippines during the 1930s and 1940s, and her father was an agent with the William Morris Agency representing the likes of Loretta Young, Ed Wynn, and Carole Lombard.

In Connecticut, Tyrrell proved to be a poor student and as a teenager became estranged from her mother. To escape, Tyrell moved to New York City in the early 1960s to focus on theater work. Through her father's connections, she was cast in the theatrical production of Time Out for Ginger (1963) starring Art Carney in New York City. Her father also persuaded Look magazine to follow her as she toured with the show. Such help ended with his death shortly after the show's tour.

After a mental breakdown and a brief hospital stay, Tyrell returned to New York. For the first time meeting and socializing with openly LGBT people. The artistic crowd of "New York freaks" she associated with included people associated with Andy Warhol people, among them Candy Darling, with whom Tyrrell had a relationship and shared an apartment. When asked about his favorite party, Warhol would claim it was one thrown by Tyrell, where she spiked the punch with LSD and then stayed up three days straight cooking for her guests - an account Tyrell denies.

Sue-Sue (as she preferred to be called) made her Broadway debut in 1965 as a replacement performer in the comedy Cactus Flower and in 1968, as a member of the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center, was in the cast of King Lear and revivals of The Time of Your Life (1969) and Camino Real (1970). Off-Broadway, Tyrrell appeared in the 1967 premiere of Lanford Wilson's The Rimers of Eldritch and a 1979 production of Father's Day at The American Place Theatre.

Tyrrell mad her television debut in Mr. Novak (1964). Film roles followed, including her Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Fat City (1972). The day after the awards ceremony, Susan disappeared for two years. No one knew where she was or why she left. Speculation was that she was disappointed having not won, but the truth was something much more traumatic.

After securing her role in Fat City, before filming began , John Houston took Tyrell on a two week trip up and down the west coast, selling ancient artifacts. During this trip, according to Tyrrell, Houston forced himself upon her. Tyrell was devastated. Much later, in her one-woman show, Tyrrell made veiled reference to "a grandpa", saying "He was a grandfather to me. But in Hollywood, all grandfathers rape you, we all know this now." In later interviews she would claim Houston stole her desire to act and that the incident is the reason her life turned out the way it did. "What he stole from me was huge."

Returning to Hollywood in 1974, Tyrell found it difficult to regain her career momentum, but she did get work, appearing in films opposite Stacy Keach, her Fat City co-star and Gene Hackman.

In 1976, she played a psychotic in the teen classic, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden and then won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Andy Warhol's Bad.

In the mid-1970s, Tyrrell enjoyed a two-year relationship with actor Hervé Villechaize and shared a home with him in the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles. The two would later team up on screen in the film Forbidden Zone.

Never shying away from tackling a tough role, Tyrell also had a habit of not playing by Hollywood's rules. She would frequently disappear for months at a time, off on some adventure that typically included lots of cocktails and the occasional mind-altering substance.

Later, she starred as Queen Doris (her favorite role) in the indie favorite Forbidden Zone (1980), in which she sang the song, Witch's Egg. A year later, she portrayed Vera in Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981). Then, in a rather dramatic turn and nod to the conventional, from 1981 to 1982, Tyrrell starred as Gretchen Feester, in the ABC's situation comedy series, Open All Night, which lasted one season. During that time, she also undertook the lead in the horror film Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981).

After two brief marriages and no children, in 1981 she told an interviewer that she had decided on tubal ligation surgery, "to ensure that no actors come out of me."

1983 found Tyrrell playing Solly in the film Angel, reprising her role for the 1984 sequel, Avenging Angel. More films followed: the adventure film Flesh+Blood, the Vincent Price anthology horror film From a Whisper to a Scream (1987),voice work for the animated feature film The Chipmunk Adventure (1987), and Big Top Pee-wee in which she played the three inch tall wife of Kris Kristofferson.

In 1990, Tyrrell took a supporting role as the hillbilly matriarch in John Waters' Cry-Baby (1990). John Waters said of her, "Susan Tyrell was the scariest woman I ever met. She was the most original, too. She put the 'C' word in character actor. I remember the first night she came to Baltimore when we were making Cry Baby. And every person she was introduced she would say, 'Hi, my name is Sue-Sue and I have the pussy of a ten year-old. I'm gonna mail it to you in a box!'"

In 1992, she summed it all up, performing her own one-woman show, Susan Tyrrell: My Rotten Life, a Bitter Operetta. Tyrrell suffered from essential thrombocytosis, a disease of the blood. In early 2000, her disease necessitated bilateral below-knee amputations. That year, Johnny Depp hosted a benefit at the Viper Room to help defray her medical bills. Megan Mullally, Jack Black, and Chloe Webb attended.

After that, she continued to make the occasional appearance, including Bob Dylan's Masked and Anonymous (2003) and The Devil's Due at Midnight (2004).

In 2008, she moved to Austin, Texas, to be closer to her niece. In January 2012, Tyrrell wrote in her journal, "I demand my death be joyful and I never return again." She died on June 16, 2012, in Austin, where she was cremated and her ashes scattered.

We'll let John Waters have the final word: "If there's a heaven, she's ripping that place up, and even God is nervous."

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