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SUZANNE MILLER

(undated/uncredited photo of Suzanne Miller, previously published on theonline UT finding guide for these papers as early as 1995)

(uncredited Tonight show era photograph, Suzanne Miller and Steve Allen, New York NY 1955 or 1956)

Petite Cinderella Lands Choice Spot With Allen

by Tom O'Malley and Bob Cunnif Akron Beacon Journal October 27th, 1955.

NEW YORK, Oct. 26 - If you're hungry for a Cinderella tale, we offer the case of Miss Susie Miller, a 20-year-old raven-haired miniature. Hardly a whisper high, she has a boyish hair-cut and the kind of round-eyed innocence one associates with waifs and puppies.

Susie, like so many other ladies eating off the fringes of the Manhattan scene, is an actress. Most actors and actresses in New York starve exquisitely, awaiting the big break.

Susie, a Toledo O. charmer, was starving only from being "in between jobs". To keep body and soul as a unit, actors will take odd jobs modeling or working in commercial exhibitions or, if really desperate, selling cologne in a department store.

The sub-five-foot Susie angled a routine "filler" assignment on Steve Allen's "Tonight". She was to demonstrate some venerable gadgets from the Antique Fair, which was then in New York.

Ordinarily, models of the standard classic proportions land these jobs, but Susie happened to 1- be around the fair, addressing envelopes, and 2 - be exactly the right proportions (tres petite) to wear an available period gown for the Allencast.

Allen, accustomed to the usual vacuous blonde mouthing sweet banalities about some commercial product, was struck by Susie's unusual freshness. "Hey, you know something," he broke in, "you're cute. If there are any producers watching - well, what more do I have to say. You can see for yourself."

As it turned out, Steve remembered HE was a producer and hired Susie for "Tonight."

We cornered Susie via Telephone to find out how Cinderella's blood pressure was holding up. "I'm having a terrible time keeping on the ground." she admitted.

We had heard she was about to move into a cold-water flat on the lower West Side. "Have you got your eye on a better place, now that you've hit it?" we asked.

"Oh, I'm not changing." she replied. "I'm staying with friends now, but pretty soon my roommate and I - her name's Janis Halliday and she's an actress, too - will move into the Mulberry st. place. It's really $20 a month and we split the rent."

"But if you're making more money than you've ever earned before, why a cold-water flat?"

"Oh, I'm interested in decorating it. It's such a horrible place - sort of a challenge. Maybe I can buy a little more expensive drapes now - stuff like that.

(This Cinderella prefers pumpkins to carriages.)

"I'm from Toledo and I've wanted to be an actress ever since the first grade. I played an angel and I loved the way everybody fussed around fixing up my costume and all. Never wanted to be anything else."

"Last thing I did before getting on Steve's show was playing the part of a 12 year old boy in 'Climate of Eden' off-Broadway. That's where I got this haircut. I don't know whether I like it or not. My hair before was sort of nothing, if you know what I mean.

Susie probably will be featured in most of the comedy sketches on the Allen opus, as well as becoming an official greeter for guests on the show. "I've already been doing research on the All Star basketball players who are going to be on the program." said Susie. "They are the big ones," she added.

When Susie mentioned parenthetically that she had found a kitten shivering in the doorway and was going to adopt it, we wondered if she had any plans for naming it. How about "Steve Allen?" we offered stupidly.

"That's corny. I respect Steve too much. I think I'll name him Theodore." Allen couldn't have been better complimented.

(uncredited Tonight-era promotional photo, archived when sold online but not obtained)

Today on TV Boston Daily Globe December 21, 1955

TONIGHT: Four aspiring comedy writers whip up a skit for Steve Allen and Susie Miller; comedian Bob McFadden, Modern Jazz Quartet, guests. 11:40 (4)

(photo of Suzanne Miller obtained by the author from eBay, not appearing in the UT archives. Suzanne Miller seen days before first appearing on the Tonight! SHOW, 1955)

Toledoan Makes The Big Time: Persistence Pays Off For Susie

by Rhea Talley Toledo Blade January 28, 1956

NEW YORK, Jan 28 - Susie Miller is so well along on the road to fame and fortune that it shouldn't be long now until she can leave her birth certificate at home when she goes shopping. In the past, saleswomen have often wondered if she were not spending mama's money without permission.

Suzie looks 14. Among the millions who see her several times a week on Steve Allen's television show "Tonight" there may be some who think she is 14. Actually Suzie is 20, and an intelligent, serious-minded girl who wants to play the classics but is hep enough to know she won't get much chance in New York, although she would make a charming Juliet if only she would let her hair grow.

This young lady, who is famous for her picture in Life as well as her TV performances, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Kenngott, 5106 Fern. She has a younger brother and sister and a baby half brother just one year old.

When Susie was graduated from Libbey High School in June, 1953, she joined the Mad Anthony Players in Toledo as an apprentice. There she met Janis Halliday of Geneva, O., who was playing leads with the Players and with whom she now shares an apartment in Greenwich Village.

A pixy is what Susie is. Television people call it "an off-beat personality." She's like a pert Peter Pan, her brown eyes flashing up beneath a great unruly shock of coal black hair that looks like a neo-Italian-boy haircut.

It was cut that was originally so that Susie might play the part of a boy in an off-Broadway production of "Climate of Eden." The coiffure was so comfortable that she cut it like that again, and that's how it was when Susie made her first appearance with Steve Allen. That's how it remains (she had cut it again, but vows that no one had asked her to keep it that way, shat she just wants a style that's easy to comb).

Given these attributes, and juxtaposition to Steve Allen, who is more than 6 feet tall, you can see why Susie makes television viewers sit up and ask, "Who's that?"

There's a moral in Susie's success story, and a success story it is, because since coming to New York in the fall of 1953 she had hardly made an impression on Broadway. Once she worked as general handygirl in an office to earn her share of the apartment and what was left over went to acting lessons.

In June, 1954 she wrangled her wangled her way as an assistant stage manager to a summer story company in Braddock, Heights Md., and also wangled several parts normally played by children. That fall she toured in a performance of ... yes, that's still being played ... "Uncle Tom's Cabin," with the Virginia City Mont. Players Her original role of Topsy delighted Susie. Then they switched her to Little Eva, whom she hated; Susie has more spice than that.

On her way back East, she stopped at home for a short visit before her second assault on New York stage doors.

Susie had the courage to make a living wherever she could. In October a friend who was promoting the New York Antiques Fair hired Susie to demonstrate antiques. This is the sort of job that New York actresses often take as stop-gaps. The job led Susie to the Steve Allen show. This appearance didn't bring her much money. Susie got her regular fee, which wasn't that big, from the Antiques Fair. Because a scout for the show thought she would make a cute addition, she went on.

Steve asked, pointing to the antiques, "Are these for sale?" and Susie replied "Yes!" A second's pause. "But I'm not."

That is all she remembers of this repartee. But whatever she said, it was good enough for Steve to ask her back the next night. The next morning NBC was on the telephone asking her to sign a contract. She agreed at once. "A whole year!" she says ecstatically.

When the network offered that contract, they weren't quite sure what Susie could do. She proved to be delightful in such dialogue as:

Steve: "What do you think of the romance of Peter and Meg?"

Susie: "Well, I think that they ... WHO?"

Steve: "Princess Margaret and Captain Townsend."

Susie: "Gee, I don't know." Pause. "Who do they record for?"

Susie doesn't say what her income is these days. She doesn't spend much of it and for rent, since she and Janis have moved into a cold-water flat on Mulberry St., which rents for $20 a month.

"Tonight" is Susie's only job. She reports for work early in the evening, stays through the end of the show, late at night, then goes out with other performers for a bite to eat, because she can't go to sleep right after working. Waking around "ten-ish" she finds her days full with publicity interviews and other work connected with "Tonight," with decorating the apartment and with her acting lessons. Susie has been working very hard to lose her midwest accent, and she must have succeeded, because no one has commented about it so far.

Susie, who weights 89 pounds, thinks her diminutive size is an advantage. "People notice you more."

She has grown to like the name Susie, although she was annoyed first when the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists wouldn't let her use her own name, Suzanne.

The other night during rehearsal, while Susie was being photographed and, in all respects, treated like a celebrity, Janis Halliday sat on the sidelines. She had just returned from a season touring with the Virginia City Players. Remembering how she had taken Susie under her wing back in Toledo, when she begged to be brought to New York, Janis must have been feeling like the hen that hatched an ostrich egg.

(clipping from The Los Angeles Examiner, January 14 1956)

Toledo Girl Makes Good On Steve Allen's Show

by Earl Wilson Syndicated to The Toledo Times

NEW YORK - "Know why I want to be famous?" Toledo's Susie Miller said on the way to be interviewed and photographed by Life and Look.

(I hope I'm scooping them with this little story for the Toledo Times.)

"I want to meet some famous people. I want to be in the same room with them, talk with them and have them want to say "Hi" to me."

Susie's sudden establishment on television with Steve Allen is Broadway's newest Cinderella story.

She'd appeared on Steve's "Tonight" program to plug the National Antiques Show.

"I needed a job," she told me, "and a friend helped me get one addressing envelopes. They got the idea I could model some of the antique costumes since I'm very small and most models won't fit in them."

"I don't know anything about antiques."

So beguiling was she, Steve has put her on as a regular. "A sort of Girl Friday on camera." says Susie, a graduate of Libbey High School who's emoted at the Mad Anthony Playhouse.

She's the daughter of Mrs. Alfred Kengott of 1111 Coventry, Toledo, where her step-father is employed by Champion Spark Plug.

"They never saw me on television," says Susie "I was on in the beginning - before Toledo gets the show. But Steve kept mentioning my name so they knew something was happening."

Susie's had to register with the TV union, AFTRA, which wouldn't let her register as Susie or Suzanne, her real name, because another TV girl was named Susan Miller.

Though she's still using the name Susie, she's registered as Susannah.

She's already caught the fancy of the TV public and the after-the-show celebrity-chasing mob shout to her, "Hello, Susie."

Susie didn't do much in dramatics at high school but, she says, "I took lots of speech and won some speech contests." She's taken dramatic instruction from the famous Herbert Berghoff on Broadway.

Recently she had the role of a boy in an off-Broadway production of "Climate of Eden" - and the boyish bob she had to have is just now growing out.

"You like TV better than the theater?" I asked.

"it's one big hectic ball - Oh, I love it" she replied. "At rehearsals there are at least 50 men moving things, shouting, playing jokes. Nothing like the discipline of the theater. It's interesting not to have a script."

"I hope I won't slip and say a cuss word."

Someone interrupted to say that some big magazines wanted to see her.

"They're so casual" she said. "But I'm not complaining. I have to go over to NBC and show them my pictures. They want to see what kind of faces I can make."

"They want me to get some funny songs that would be cute to sing."

"You sing, too?" I asked.

"I shouldn't!" she said.

(detail from The Baltimore Sun, Christmas Day 1955. This promotional photo appears commonly elsewhere in newspaper archives, though not in the U Toledo papers)

(Scan from Little Girl in a Big City from American, January 1956. Detail scanned sourced from the UT finding guide for these papers, 1995)

LITTLE GIRL IN A BIG CITY

by Susie Miller

1/1956

The other night, a woman stopped me in a theater lobby and said, "Susie, my teen-age daughter's brokenhearted because she's only four feet eight. She feels just like a midget and thinks she hasn't got a chance in life. You've been in stage shows, now you're on TV, and you seem to have lots of friends. How did you overcome your handicap?"

I drew myself up to my full 4 feet 11 inches and replied, "Being small is a darn nuisance, as your daughter and I both know, but it doesn't have to be a handicap. You've just got to believe that you're as tall as you feel, and convince people that you're a real grownup even if you still look like the kid next door."

As I slipped out of the darkened theater and walked down Broadway to take a subway home, I got to thinking about my size and whether it had affected my life. As usual on the crowded sidewalks I was being pushed and jostled by full-sized folks coming out of restaurants and movie houses. I thought how nice it would be to be able to jostle them back. But this I know I'll never be able to do. The minute I hit a busy street, I'm fair game for anybody taller than I am, which includes just about everybody except babes in arms.

Men I meet at parties have an impulse to pat me on the head and protect me, instead of asking me out on dates. I'm not only the size of a rather small 12-year-old, but I look like one. It's awful hard to make people believe you're 20 when all they say when they see you is, "What a cute little kid."

Back home in Toledo it never occurred to me that I was any different from other youngsters until I got to the sixth grade. I was, of course, a good deal smaller than my classmates, but at first I didn't mind when they called me Midget and Shorty. I thought these nicknames were kind of cute. But one day I overheard my school chums discussing a party they were getting up. When my name was mentioned, someone said "Gee, I suppose we have to invite Susie, but gosh, she looks like such an infant!"

Well, that did it. Next day I went to the public library and came across a paragraph to the effect that stretching exercises and drinking lots of milk might make a person grow. For the next few weeks I stood in front of my bedroom mirror for hours and stretched every which way. Then I'd hurry to the icebox for as much milk as I could swallow. At the end of six weeks I sadly learned I hadn't sprouted by so much of a 16th of an inch!

A few years later, when I was 15, I was in biology class one day when the subject was genes and chromosomes - the tiny cells that make us what we are. During class discussion, the teacher pointed to me and said, pointedly in front of all the others: "Now, take little Susie, here. I happen to know her parents are small too: so it's not scientifically probable that she's ever grow any more." One the way home from school I stopped and bought the highest-heeled shoes I could find.

During high school I got a great idea. Maybe it would add inches to my height - or at least make me look taller - if I studied dramatics, and learned to stand and walk effectively. But when I appeared for tryouts, I was always a source of giggles and amusement. I felt like the man in the ad: "They laughed when I sat down at the piano." But when I graduated I was more fired up than ever to get on the stage. I'd have been willing to just walk around in a dog's suit if it meant appearing behind the footlights. The University of Toledo had a dramatic school and I was lucky enough to get a job in their summer stock theater that first year after high school.

Of course, everybody thought I was crazy to want to be an actress. They said I'd never get to play anything but children's roles until I was 50 and old enough to be a character actress, where size and shape don't count so much. But, being stage-struck, I'd read a lot of magazine articles about stage and screen stars, and I'd discovered that there were lots of successful actresses not much taller than myself - like Veronica Lake (5' 1") Imogene Coca (5' 2") Mary Pickford and Helen Hayes (both an even 5 feet). Somehow, they all made people believe they are taller than they really are.

Miss Hayes, incidentally, recently said that all through history, tiny women have had better luck with men than many of their full-sized sisters. "I've played three queens," she said, "Mary Stuart, Cleopatra, and Victoria. Cleopatra was very small: she weighed about 100 pounds, but she was very successful with men. So was Queen Victoria, who was not only short but also fat and dumpy. Then look at Mary Stuart. She was six feet tall, but got badly treated by men who were using her to advance their own ends. Finally, she lost her head."

If Helen Hayes could make people believe she was 6 feet tall on stage, I figured perhaps I had a chance, so I stuck to it.

A friend in summer stock, Janis Halliday, had gone on to New York to try a crack at Broadway. She wrote me she thought I might be just right for a certain part in a New York show she knew about. Believe me, I couldn't pack my bags fast enough. I moved into Janis's $20-a-month cold-water flat in Greenwich Village and became literally "the little girl in the big city."

The first time I went to the movies by myself and plunked down my money, the cashier told me haughtily, "I'm sorry, little girl, but you can't go in unless accompanied by an adult." The same sort of thing happened a short time later, when Janis and I and a couple of young actors we knew went to order a beer at a local tavern. Everybody got served but poor little Susie, and I had to leave.

I finally wrote home and had the Toledo Board of Health send me a card attesting to my age. This seems to satisfy most bartenders, even though they still shake their heads in disbelief when they see that my head barely clears the counter.

Of course, one obvious problem when you're small is finding clothes. In school I could always go to the children's department of one of the big stores in Toledo and find something to wear. But when I go to New York and started traipsing around to producers' offices, I wanted to look like, well, at least 16. So I had to buy grownups' clothes. I weigh 89 pounds, my figure measurements are 32-22-33, and I wear a size 5 dress, which is pretty hard to find anywhere. After I get the dress home, I always have to take up the hem a couple of inches. I can still buy most of my accessories, like hats and gloves, in subdeb departments.

But my real problem - an expensive one - is shoes. I wear a size 3 and have found that apparently only the very rich have feet that small. I always have to pay an awful lot for shoes because none of the moderate-priced shoe shops carry my size.

Incidentally, I no longer wear extremely high heals. When you're as short as I am, an extra inch or two one way or the other won't make much difference. So my favorite footwear is a pair of Indian moccasins. They make me look even shorter - but now that I've learned to make the most of what I've got, that doesn't seem so important as it used to.

Actually, up until now, my stage and TV roles have come as a result of my half-pint size, rather than in spite of it. But I'm more determined and more confident than ever that sooner or later I'm going to break through the size barrier.

After reaching New York I didn't get the role my roommate had in mind. But shortly thereafter a producer called to ask if I'd be interested in playing a boy in a play called The Climate of Eden. I've always been afraid I'd be typed as a gamin (I call it my Leslie Caron complex) and doomed forever to play little boys, leprechauns, sprites and elfin characters. But that first boy's role was a break into the theater and I accepted the part gladly.

When the show closed, I was asked to audition for a little girl's part, this time a play called Anniversary Waltz starring Kitty Carlisle and MacDonald Carey. I was stunned when I was turned down - not so much at losing the role, but because I was too short to play the 12-year-old daughter of such tall parents as Kitty and MacDonald!

Well, now I've lived the part of the struggling young actress to the hilt. I've trudged from producer's office to producer's office. Janis and I lived off beans which we cooked on the hot plate in our combination bathroom-kitchen.

I began taking any kind of job I could find. I finally got office work with a meat packer, but after several weeks I began to wonder if I shouldn't start saving up carfare for that long ride back to Toledo.

Then one morning not long ago the phone rang. It was a friend of mine who was doing publicity for the Antiques Fair, an annual institution in New York City. He asked if I would be willing to try some clerical work on a temporary basis. I've learned, when you're trying to break into show business, never turn down a legitimate offer. So I showed up promptly next morning ready to attack the card files with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. I only hoped the cabinets wouldn't be out of my reach.

On hangers in the office I noticed a number of ladies' dresses, from the Revolutionary War period. What struck me most about them was that they all looked like size 5's - my size! I asked someone how come, and was told I would have been a full-sized female a couple of hundred years ago, when women ran much smaller than today. So I asked to try on the dresses, and found they fit perfectly. Then, since I'd had some acting experience, I was told I could model the dresses, if I wanted to, on Steve Allen's NBC-TV show, Tonight since Steve planned to mention the Fair on his program. Did I ever jump at the chance! Now, at least, I could tell them when I got back home that I'd "been on television."

I must have looked pretty funny in those costumes. I wear my unruly hair short and sort of sticking up - and I must have come over like a fresh kid in her grandma's gown. Since Steve is 6-foot-3, I looked even tinier. Well, anyway, everybody began laughing, and Steve, who's very fast with an ad lib, wouldn't let me off the stage. We sort of talked a while and when I found I felt completely at home in front of the cameras. Stand even an aspiring actress on a stage in a ring of bright lights, and anything is likely to happen, from a stage-fright collapse to an unexpected hit performance.

After the show Steve put his arm around me and said "Susie, you were wonderful tonight. You gave us all a lot of kicks. Come around tomorrow, and maybe we can make you part of the show."

Those next few days were, well, just as they say, like a dream. Steve Allen gave me a contract. I suddenly was getting offers from other shows for amounts of money that sounded astronomical. But the happiest thought was that I had my foot - however tiny - in the door. Once you've made a success, however small (excuse the pun!), nice things begin to happen. Like Steve wrote letters to all the casting directors at NBC asking them to keep me in mind.

People still refer to me as "little" Susie. It's never that "intelligent" or "charming" girl, but that "little" girl. I'm still typed as a "cute kid" and am expected to act like one, of stage as well as on.

Personally, I don't know how many peewees like me there are in American. I read somewhere that 5,500,000 women are under 5 feet tall. I hope they don't let their small stature keep them down.

You have to remember the nice things when being little gets you down. Just when you think you'll go crazy if one more male comes along, pats you on the head, and says "What's a pretty little girl, four foot eleven ... gee, that's pretty little!" you recall one of the nice things that happened to you in spite of your size.

I remember, when I first decided to be an actress during those summer-stock days in Toledo, I often felt low when everybody poked fun at me, saying that I'd never be picked for a grown-up part, that even the highest heels wouldn't get me off the ground far enough to make me look like a real woman. One day I began painting scenery and I must have been looking me youngest and littlest. I had on a pair of shorts, a grubby T-shirt, and dirty sneakers. I was bemoaning my height because I couldn't reach up to paint the top of a screen. Then the company's director came over and said, "Susie, in our next play, Dark of the Moon, there's a part for a real slinky, seductive witch. You're the only girl in the company I can see playing it. Interested?"

I looked up at him and then down at my paint-splattered legs and I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just hugged him. It was the nicest thing anybody had ever said to me. When I went back to my painting I found it was a cinch to finish off the screen. I guess I didn't know until that moment how really tall I could be.

THE END

(Suzanne Miller and Herb Sargent, American Magazine, January 1956)

Unknown Toledo newspaper

6/6/56

Sue Miller, the little Toledo miss who began her career with the Mad Anthony Players in the Zoo's indoor theater and became television's Cinderella girl this past season by landing a contract with Steve Allen for his "Tonight" show, has taken a leave of absence from that assignment to do summer stock in Madison, O., during the next few months. Sue, who has been studying histrionics with Stella Adler in New York, is visiting her family here. She expects to return to the Allen program in the fall.

From Jack O'Brian's syndicated International News Service column

August 25, 1956

...What ever happened to Suzie Miller?....

BIOGRAPHY FROM THE MEXICO CITY COLLEGE PRODUCTION OF ISBEN'S "GHOSTS" (self-penned?)

November, 1958

Suzanne Miller (the director) has recently arrived in Mexico after completing her studies at the Stella Adler Studio in New York. She has been acting and directing in various professional theatres in the United States for many years, and brings to this production a variety of theatrical experience. She has appeared in several off-Broadway productions in New York, among which were "The Climate of Eden" and tryouts of new plays. For the American Shakespeare Festival she understudied for the role of Juliet. Miss Miller believes in the importance of an Ibsen theatre where Ibsen's plays could be produced in chronological order as a cycle. This would allow the public to see all the conflicting sides that he saw, and to arrive at a clear idea of his thought.

(above photo of Suzanne Miller in Mexico City does not appear in the UT papers)

'Ghosts' Opens Tomorrow Night in MCC Theater

by Bob Stout

Mexico City Collegian, Vol. 11, No. 4

Friday, December 6, 1957

The MCC drama season opens tomorrow night at 8:00 in the College theater with the Suzanne Miller directed presentation of Ibsen's Ghosts.

A student matinee was held yesterday to work the final "kinks" out of the production for tomorrow's official opening.

The performances are free to MCC students and ten pesos for the public. Free bus service will leave the Diana at 7:30 and return there after the play.

Gene Gerzso, strong in her portrayal of Mrs. Alving, a determined and bitter woman, heads the list of veteran performers that will bring Ghosts to life.

Mrs. Gerzso has previously appeared locally in such roles as Amanda in Noel Coward's Private Lives, Ruth in Coward's Blithe Spirit, and Perpetua in Christopher Fry's Venus Observed.

A graduate with a degree in music from College of Pacific, she has also studied music and drama in New York, at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and the Cleveland Playhouse. With the later group she appeared in The Night of January 16th, The Servant of Two Masters, and Bury the Dead, among other plays. She has also done summer stock work in Carmel, California.

Anthony Zerbe, as interpreter of the role of Oswald Alving, her son, a weak, syphilitic, young artist, formerly appeared on the stage with the Pomona College "Masquers" and the Newport Players, handling such parts as Coney in Home of the Brave, Yank in Hasty Heart and Hank in Desperate Hours. He also studied drama in New York with the Famous Stella Adler.

Angel Gonzáles, as Pastor Manders, a euphemistic, society fearing preacher typifying the obedience of the code of conventional, contemporary social values, is head of the MCC Spanish Department and an expert in English literature, especially the Age of Milton. He has done dramatic work locally, in Spain, and in Scotland.

Jacob Engstrand, opportunist and hypocrite who has taken advantage of the Alving household, will be portrayed by Sam Wixman. Attracted to Mexico by "the opportunities here for cultural and social research," former college professor Wixman has appeared in The Night of January 16th, The Sea Gull, Nathan the Wise, and the reading of the Caine Mutiny Court Martial with groups in Mexico City and has done little theater work in San Francisco, Berkely, and Pasadena, California.

A student of the Lewis Classes of Drama and assistant director of the Lewis Children's Drama Class here, Jenny Dowling enacts the part of Regina Engstrand in tomorrow's performance. Miss Dowling, a veteran actress in the local Dr. Julia Baker workshop, has previously appeared in Faust, Romeo and Juliet, and Monkey's Paw.

The director, Suzanne Miller, a newcomer to Mexico City College dramatic circles, comes here from the New York stage. A former student of Stella Adler in New York, the vivacious Toledo, Ohio, born director appeared in last summer's American Shakespeare Festival and in several plays in off Broadway theaters.

Collegian Throws Merited Bouquets

Mexico City Collegian, Vol. 11, No. 5

Thursday, January 30, 1958

It isn't often that the Collegian throws bouquets.

But we feel the director and cast of last quarter's dramatic production, Ghosts, deserve one.

Suzanne Miller, the pint-sized little dynamo from New York's Shakespeare Festival, did a wonderful job of casting and directing.

It was her first such experience. She asked the college to give her the opportunity to direct Ibsen's masterpiece, and volunteered her services free.

The result was a polished, almost flawless production.

Gene Gerzso, Tony Zerbe, Sam Wixman, Jenny Dowling and Angel Gonzáles sacrificed time from their regular jobs and classes, braved laryngitis and worked overtime to perfect their roles.

Arnold Belkin, almost unassisted (except by the Collegian staff), designed and built the sets.

Tom Sewell spent days and nights behind the scenes doing everything from carrying coffee to playing Tarzan on the curtain ropes.

To all of you, and to everyone else who had a part in making Ghosts a success, we give our thanks. . .

Or, as Suzanne would have said, "We love you all."

R.J.S.

(Suzanne Miller and Joseph Cornell. Photo appeared on the cover to the exhibition COLLAGES BY JOSEPH CORNELL)

COLLAGES BY JOSEPH CORNELL

Exhibition catalog, 1975

COLLAGES BY JOSEPH CORNELL

COLLEGE OF CREATIVE STUDIES GALLERY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SANTA BARBARA

Suzanne Miller Joseph Cornell

COLLAGES BY JOSEPH CORNELL

October 24 - November 11, 1975

Opening Hours Friday, October 24, 4 - 6 PM

Gallery Hours: Mon - Sat 10 AM - 4 PM, Sun 1 - 5 PM

CATALOG OF THE EXHIBITION

COLLEGE OF CREATIVE STUDIES

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SANTA BARBARA

EXHIBITION DATES: OCTOBER 24 - NOVEMBER 11, 1975

THESE COLLAGES BY JOSEPH CORNELL WERE LOANED TO THE COLLEGE OF CREATIVE STUDIES BY SUZANNE MILLER, A RESIDENT OF SANTA BARBARA. SHE FIRST MET JOSEPH CORNELL IN 1955 WHEN SHE WAS 20 YEARS OLD AND PLAYING IN AN OFF-BROADWAY PRODUCTION IN NEW YORK CITY. CORNELL CAME TO SEE THE PERFORMANCE AND STAYED TO MEET THE ACTORS. SUZANNE AND CORNELL BECAME FRIENDS AND REMAINED SO UNTIL HIS DEATH IN 1972. SHE RECEIVED THREE OF THE COLLAGES, BOY IN THE DESERT, THE BUST, AND BUTTERFLY AND ROSE OVER THE YEARS, AND THREE OTHERS WERE LEFT TO HER AFTER HE DIED.

SUZANNE MILLER WROTE THE ANECDOTAL COMMENTS ABOUT EACH OF THE COLLAGES FOR THIS CATALOG AT SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA, IN 1975.

BOY IN THE DESERT - 1955

THIS IS THE MOST ELABORATE COLLAGE IN THE COLLECTION. CORNELL'S COMMENT: "PROBABLY VERY FIRST COLLAGE." THE STORY BEHIND IT REFERS TO THE TIME I MET JOSEPH. I WAS PERFORMING IN AN OFF BROADWAY PLAY, MOSS HART'S CLIMATE OF EDEN. I PLAYED AN ELEVEN YEAR OLD BOY NAMED BERTON. JOSEPH CAME TO SEE THE PERFORMANCE AND STAYED TO MEET THE ACTORS. WE BECAME FRIENDS, ALTHOUGH IT WAS A WHOLE YEAR BEFORE I UNDERSTOOD WHO THIS ODD AND DELIGHTFUL PERSON WAS. THE PATH FROM MY PERFORMANCE AS A LITTLE BOY IN A PLAY TO THE HOGARTH BOY WHICH HE HAS PLACED SO JOYOUSLY IN THE DESERT IS NOT A DIRECT ONE, BUT RATHER ONE OF THOSE LEAPS OF ASSOCIATION EXECUTED BY THIS ARTIST.

FRANZ HALS IMAGE

THIS COLLAGE CONTAINS A PICTURE I SENT TO JOSEPH FROM SPAIN. I CAN’T REMEMBER WHY I SENT HIM THIS PARTICULAR PICTURE SINCE THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IS NOT EVEN IN SPAIN. I KNEW JOSEPH USED THINGS IN ART THAT EVOKED A PERSONAL RESPONSE. I WOULD SAY THAT PERHAPS, SINCE I AM OF DUTCH ORIGIN, THE SAW A RESEMBLANCE.

HÔTEL DE L'ETOILE

THE HOTEL THEME RUNS THROUGH THE CORNELL BOXES AND REAPPEARS IN THIS COLLAGE AS A HAUNTING FACE ONE MIGHT CATCH A GLIMPSE OF IN THE WINDOW OF AN OLD AND COSMIC HOTEL. THE IMAGE CAME FROM AN AFTERNOON I SPENT WITH JOSEPH IN THE SHOPPING AREA OF FLUSHING, NEW YORK. OVER THE YEARS WOOLWORTH WAS AN IMPORTANT SOURCE OF STIMULATION AND CREATIVITY. HE FOUND MANY OBJECTS HE COULD LOVE THERE: STAMPS, PAINTED WOODEN BIRDS, GOLD BRACELETS, WINE GLASSES, MARBLES, ETC. SINCE HE WANTED MY PHOTOGRAPH, THE BEST PLACE TO GET IT WAS THE OLD WOOLWORTH'S PHOTO BOOTH. THE IMAGE YOU SEE IS AN ENLARGEMENT OF A DIME STORE PROCESS TURNED INTO QUITE SOMETHING ELSE.

THE BUST (?) - 1969

NOTATIONS ON THE BACK:

CONTEXT OF NEW LIFE EXPERIENCE

MOPPET CIRCLING ON VELOCOPEDE [sic]

MOZART NO. 2 HORN CONCERTO 1965

PREOCCUPIED WITH “MINOR” COLLAGE

THIS IS NOT, STRICTLY SPEAKING, A COLLAGE SINCE THERE IS ONLY ONE IMAGE. CORNELL COMMENTED THAT THERE WAS NO IMAGE TO BE ADDED THAT WOULDN’T SOMEHOW DISTURB IT. THE IMAGE COMES FROM A MAGAZINE AD FOR CARTIER’S JEWELRY. DIPPED IN BLUE STAIN, IT EMERGES MYSTERIOUSLY IMMOBILE AND YET VIBRANT. IF YOU SENSE A DELICATE EROTICISM IN IT, YOU ARE VERY PROBABLY RIGHT.

PORTRAIT OF A GIRL - 1969

THIS COLLAGE WAS MADE WHILE I WAS IN SPAIN, ALTHOUGH IT HAS NO CONNECTION WITH ANYTHING SPANISH. CORNELL MADE NO OBVIOUS ASSOCIATIONS OR LITERAL SYMBOLISMS. HE ALLOWED HIS SUBCONSCIOUS TO SURFACE AND GUIDE HIS SENSIBILITIES. I REMEMBER WRITING HIM FROM SPAIN ABOUT MY TRAVELER'S EXISTENCE TAKING PLACE IN THE PAST AND THE PRESENT SIMULTANEOUSLY -- THE EXPERIENCE AMERICANS OFTEN HAVE IN OLD COUNTRIES. HERE WE HAVE A PORTRAIT OF A CHILD FROM THE PAST TOUCHING AN OBJECT IN THE FUTURE, WHICH, OF COURSE, IS OUR PRESENT. IN THE ORIGINAL PAINTING, THE OBJECT IS A MUSIC BOX OF THE 1600'S. CORNELL HAS REMOVED THIS OBJECT, REPLACING IT WITH AN IMAGE OF THE 20TH CENTURY, AN IMAGE DIFFICULT TO RECOGNIZE BUT UNMISTAKABLY MODERN. HE HAS REMOVED THE BACKGROUND, PLACING THE FIGURE IN AN INDETERMINATE TIME AND SPACE, CREATING A METAPHOR OF PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.

BUTTERFLY AND ROSE - 1970

THIS COLLAGE WAS ONE OF CORNELL'S LAST WORKS. THE NOTATION ON THE BACK IS "FAIRY TALE FOR MAGRITTE" WITH THE NAME MAGRITTE CROSSED OUT AND FOLLOWED BY THE SYMBOL FOR A STAR. I REMEMBER GIVING JOSEPH THE ROSE WHICH HE FASTENED TO THIS COLLAGE. I EXPRESSED CONCERN THAT THE ROSE MIGHT FALL APART EVENTUALLY, CORNELL WAS INDIGNANT AT THIS SUGGESTION, ASSURING ME THAT HIS PIECES DID NOT FALL APART. HERE AGAIN IS THE USE OF OBJECTS FOUND IN UNLIKELY PLACES, A BUTTERFLY STICKER, A PHOTO FROM THE FIVE AND DIME, THE SAME SUNDIAL IMAGE THAT RUNS THROUGHOUT HIS WORK, A CUTOUT FROM A LITTLE PAPERBACK ON THE STARS, A SIMPLE PROTRACTOR -- ENOUGH TO SUGGEST THE UNIVERSE IN A TOTALLY UNPRETENTIOUS WAY. TOWARD THE END OF HIS LIFE JOSEPH COMMENTED ABOUT THE DISAPPEARANCE OF COMMON OBJECTS ABLE TO EVOKE A RESPONSE IN HIM. WOOLWORTH WAS NOW FULL OF THINGS STAMPED IN PLASTIC. THESE NEW THINGS DIDN'T MOVE HIM. THE OBJET TROUVÉ HAD BECOME THE OBJET MORT.

#suzanne miller #tonight show #joseph cornell #toledo #toledo ohio #toledo history #steve allen #primal scream therapy #shakespeare in the park #stella adler #the honeymooners #anthony zerbe #daphne rose kingma

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