Susan Clark Birthday Tribute: The Emmy Award-Winner has played Babe Didrickson, Amelia Earhart, Hedda Gabler, Webster's Mom, Cherry Forever & More

Susan Clark, the talented, lovely and sexy Canadian born actress-producer (and widow of the late, great NFL star turned film & TV actor Alex Karras) turns 81 on March 8th, 2024.

Before she married Karras (who died from complications related to kidney failure in 2012), Clark kept busy in the late 1960's--early 1970's playing opposite leading men a decade or more older than her: Burt Lancaster, James Garner, Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, Rock Hudson, Dean Martin, and George Kennedy.

With Fonda in MADIGAN (1968)

With Dino & Rock in 1973's SHOWDOWN

She was also partnered up with stars closer to her own age: Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds and Eric THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS Braeden.

With Braeden in COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT

With Katherine Ross & Redford in

1969's TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE

After meeting Karras, they scored big on TV.

First in the 1975 TV movie they met on, BABE, which won Clark an Emmy for playing legendary Olympic Gold medalist & world champion golfer Babe Didrickson Zaharias. Karras played her husband, professional wrestler George Zaharias

Clark as Babe and The Mad Duck as George Zaharias

Clark was nominated for an Emmy the next year for playing another real-life hero: the title role in AMELIA EARHART.

Clark and Karras married in 1980 and later teamed up for the long-running sitcom WEBSTER (1983-87 ABC, 1987-89 Syndication), with Emmanuel Lewis. The show twice cracked the Top 30 in the Nielsen Ratings.

Clark and Karras also appeared together in the 1982 teen sex comedy blockbuster PORKY'S, which spawned a successful film franchise.

As prostitute Cherry Forever in PORKY'S with Mark Herrier & Wyatt Knight

Mongo was the no-good Sheriff Wallace

My Clark film & TV faves (before A.K):

Opposite James Garner as the sneaky, sexy grifter Ginger in the 1971 comedy-drama-western gem SKIN GAME

Private eye Harry Moseby's (Gene Hackman) philandering wife, Ellen, in Arthur Penn's 1975 gumshoe classic NIGHT MOVES

Probation officer Julie Roth, who falls for COOGAN'S (Clint Eastwood) BLUFF

Or should I say Buff?

This was one of two films Clark appeared in for director Don Siegel in 1968

Cruel, powerful rancher Jon Cypher's lover, Gay Erin, who is taken hostage by vengeful ex-Indian fighter Burt Lancaster in one of my favorite 'comfort food' oaters--

1971's VALDEZ IS COMING

''Tell him, Valdez is Coming''

You might also want to tell him, that Valdez has a foot fetish!

Wow, Looks like Valdez is also into bondage too--poor Susan

Fashionable Heiress Beth Chadwick, who commits fratricide on her controlling sibling Richard

THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN Anderson in the Peter Falk COLUMBO mystery

Lady in Waiting also featuring Leslie Nielsen

Reunited with Lancaster 3 years after VALDEZ in the murky murder mystery THE MIDNIGHT MAN--she played Linda Thorpe, Lancaster's parole officer and paramour

Lancaster co-directed, co-produced and co-wrote THE MM with

old pal Roland Kibbee

Her trio of Doctors:

Dr. Elizabeth Arnold, love interest of Deputy Sheriff 'Coop' Cooper in 1969's

TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE

Doing a British accent as Anthropologist Dr. Sybil Greame in the 1970 sci-fi adventure SKULLDUGGERY with Burt Reynolds

Scientist Dr. Cleo Markham, the ''mistress'' of Dr. Forbin (Eric Braeden) in

the gripping, ''end-of-the-world' science fiction thriller

COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT

C:TFP contains the classic shot of a nude Clark through a wine glass--cheers to

cinematographer Gene WESTWORLD Polito!

Flight passenger Helen Patroni, wife of airplane mechanic turned airline vice president Joe Patroni (George Kennedy), in the first sequel to AIRPORT, the oddly titled AIRPORT 1975 (it was released in 1974!)

Mary Duren, teacher and later wife of the big lug of blacksmith John Killibrew (Dan Blocker) in the well done 1968 NBC tele-film SOMETHING FOR A LONELY MAN

Barbara Potter, married to Richard Crenna for 25 years in the 1974 Broadway Theater Archive production of Robert TEA & SYMPATHY Anderson's DOUBLE SOLITAIRE,

also featuring Harold THE STING Gould and Nicholas THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Hammond

Stagecoach driver Magnolia Dusty Clydesdale in Disney's

THE APPLE DUMPLING GANG

Getting tough with Bill Bixby in DUMPLING

Tricia Bentley, N.Y. City Police Commissioner Anthony X. Russell's (Henry Fonda) married mistress in MADIGAN, her other 1968 film for director Don Siegel

Rock Hudson's wife in director George AIRPORT Seaton's last film--

1973's SHOWDOWN

My favorite Clark film & TV roles (after A.K.):

Jack the Ripper victim Mary Kelly in the Bob A CHRISTMAS STORY Clark directed version of Sherlock Holmes, MURDER BY DECREE, with Christopher Plummer as

the famed sleuth

Church secretary Ruth Woods, one of THE NORTH AVENUE IRREGULARS,

a 1979 Disney family comedy

Clark, Virginia Capers, Patsy Kelly, Cloris Leachman, & Karen Valentine are IRREGULARS

The deceitful lady of the night Cherry Forever

in PORKY'S

''What do you use for a jockstrap, kid? A peanut shell and a rubber band?''

Lila Young in 1996's BUTTERBOX BABIES, owner of a home for unwed, expectant mothers and illegal seller of healthy babies--she and her husband buried the children who died in their care in butterboxes

Another role opposite Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous creation, this

time as blackmailer Madge Larrabee in the HBO presentation of a live performance of the Williamstown Theater Festival's SHERLOCK HOLMES (Frank Langella) by William Gillette,

Teamed up with her husband again as attorney Catherine Abel, sued by unemployed worker Karras for sex discrimination in the Tracy & Hepburn-like 1982 tele-film

MAID IN AMERICA--Clark & Karras also executive produced the movie

Clark's many other film and TV credits include:

The title role of HEDDA GABLER (1978), CITY ON FIRE,

Aunt Elizabeth Murray in the Canadian series EMILY OF THE NEW MOON, Tonya Harding's mom in TONYA & NANCY: THE INSIDE STORY, opposite her husband in JIMMY B. & ANDRE (also produced), BOB HOPE PRESENTS THE CHRYSLER THEATRE, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, PROMISES IN THE DARK, THE CHOICE, THE CHALLENGERS, BANNING, THE VIRGINIAN, McNAUGHTON'S DAUGHTER, MARCUS WELBY M.D., THE ASTRONAUT, NOBODYS PERFEKT (with Karras), TRAPPED, BARNABY JONES, TOE TAGS, SNOWBOUND: THE JIM AND JENNIFER STOLPA STORY, DOUBLE NEGATIVE, MURDER, SHE WROTE and more.

EMILY OF THE NEW MOON

The only reason I can recommend the unfunny 1981 comedy

NOBODY'S PERFEKT is that you get to see Clark in a bikini

With Robert Wagner in 1967's BANNING

Clark has also scored big on the stage. She was Lady Macbeth in MACBETH, Eleanor of Aquitaine (opposite George Peppard as King Henry II) in THE LION IN WINTER and Lady Bracknell in THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST.

As Lady Bracknell

Her other stage credits include: SILK STOCKINGS (her debut at age 15) with Don Ameche, AFTERPLAY, GETTING OUT, DANCING AT LUGHNASA, THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, THE SECOND MAN, SHERLOCK HOLMES, THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE, A DELICATE BALANCE, THE VORTEX, THE SISTERS ROSENSWEIG,THE GLASS MENAGERIE, TOYS IN THE ATTIC, BICOASTAL WOMEN, COLLECTED STORIES and more.

With Joseph Fuqua in THE GLASS MENAGERIE

She appeared in HABITAT with the Latino Theater Company at the Los Angeles Theater Center with Esperanza America and COLLECTED STORIES with Meghan Andrews at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, California