Unconventional thesp Susan Tyrrell, who was Oscar-nommed for her supporting actress role in John Huston's "Fat City," died Sunday, according to her website. The cult actress, who often played whores, crazies and grotesques, was 67.
"I've been here for my own pleasure -- Strictly -- I even found pleasure in displeasure -- I would ride those seas and walk those planks -- ARRRR," read a quote from her on the website.
Born Susan Jillian Creamer in San Francisco -- her father was a William Morris
agent -- she made her stage debut as a teenager in 1962 in "Time Out
for Ginger." After appearing in a number of New York stage productions
as member of the Lincoln Center
repertory company, she began to get film roles in pics including "Shoot
Out" and "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me," and won her Oscar
nom in her fourth film job as a low-life boozer girlfriend opposite Stacy Keach's washed-up boxer.
Her other roles in the 1970s included "The Killer Inside Me," "Andy Warhol's Bad," "Islands in the Stream" and "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden."
She continued her offbeat character roles as in the 1980s in films such as "Tales of Ordinary Madness," "Forbidden Zone," "Big Top Pee-Wee" and John Waters' "Cry-Baby."
In later years, she appeared in avant-garde theater productions in Los Angeles including her one-woman show "My Rotten Life: A Bitter Operetta" and did voices for cartoons such as "Cow and Chicken" and "Extreme Ghostbusters."
She told the Los Angeles Weekly in 2000, "The last thing my mother said to me was, 'SuSu, your life is a celebration of everything that is cheap and tawdry.' I've always liked that, and I've always tried to live up to it."
In 2000, she contracted a rare blood disease and had both legs amputated. Nonetheless, she continued to appear in films such as Larry Charles' "Masked and Anonymous.
"I've been here for my own pleasure -- Strictly -- I even found pleasure in displeasure -- I would ride those seas and walk those planks -- ARRRR," read a quote from her on the website.
Her other roles in the 1970s included "The Killer Inside Me," "Andy Warhol's Bad," "Islands in the Stream" and "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden."
She continued her offbeat character roles as in the 1980s in films such as "Tales of Ordinary Madness," "Forbidden Zone," "Big Top Pee-Wee" and John Waters' "Cry-Baby."
In later years, she appeared in avant-garde theater productions in Los Angeles including her one-woman show "My Rotten Life: A Bitter Operetta" and did voices for cartoons such as "Cow and Chicken" and "Extreme Ghostbusters."
She told the Los Angeles Weekly in 2000, "The last thing my mother said to me was, 'SuSu, your life is a celebration of everything that is cheap and tawdry.' I've always liked that, and I've always tried to live up to it."
In 2000, she contracted a rare blood disease and had both legs amputated. Nonetheless, she continued to appear in films such as Larry Charles' "Masked and Anonymous.
