Susan Cummings (née Gerda Susanne Tafel; July 10, 1930 – December 3, 2016) was a German-American actress active from the 1940s to 1960s who started as a teenager in the earliest days of commercial television and appeared in television shows, feature films and on Broadway. Her birth surname of Tafel was sometimes printed as Ta Fel.[1]
Early years
Born Gerda Susanne Tafel in Bavaria, Germany, she immigrated to the United States at age 7 on March 12, 1938, shortly before the outbreak of World War II.[2] The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Tafel,[1] she was raised in Newark, New Jersey, where her father ran a bakery.[2]
Career
Cummings (billed as Suzanne Tafel) was a teenager when she became a regular on the American television variety seriesAt Home, which aired on New York City station WCBW (now WCBS-TV) from 1944 to 1945 in the earliest years of commercial television.[3] She first appeared in Broadway theatre in 1945, portraying Susan Peters in Carousel.[4]
She made two guest appearances on Perry Mason: one as Lois Fenton in the title role in the 1957 episode "The Case of the Fan Dancer's Horse" and as Margaret Swaine in the 1959 episode "The Case of the Lame Canary".
In 1960, she appeared as Stella Carney, a love interest of Marshal Dillon, in an episode of the television Western series Gunsmoke. She appeared as Patty in a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone titled "To Serve Man". In February 1964, she appeared in an episode of the TV series McHale's Navy.
Personal life
In the late 1940s, Cummings was married to rodeo performer Wayne Dunafon.[3] She married actor Keith Larsen[6] on December 28, 1953, in Ensenada, Mexico. She was also married to actor Charles T. Pawley and accountant Robert E. Strasser.[1][7]
According to Cummings, she was a registered Republican[2] and was raised Lutheran but converted to Mormonism upon her marriage to Larsen.[2]
^"Suzanne Tafel". Internet Broadway Database. The Broadway League. Archived from the original on January 1, 2019. Retrieved January 1, 2019.
^Terrace, Vincent (2011). Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010 (2nd ed.). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. p. 1130. ISBN978-0-7864-6477-7.
