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Susan Cummings (born 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 several television shows and feature films, and on Broadway. Her Tafel birth surname was sometimes printed as Ta Fel.[1]

Susan Cummings
Susan Cummings with Craig Stevens on Peter Gunn (1960)
Born	Gerda Susanne Tafel (1930-07-10)July 10, 1930 Bavaria, Germany
Died	December 3, 2016(2016-12-03) (aged 86) Chandler, Arizona, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1944-1974
Spouse(s)	Wayne Dunafon (m. 194?; div. 19??) Keith Larsen ​ ​ (m. 1953; div. 1960)​ Charles T. Pawley ​ ​ (m. 1962; died 1975)​ Robert E. Strasser ​ ​ (m. 1976)​
Children	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 grew up in Newark, New Jersey, where her father ran a bakery.[2]

Career

Cummings (billed as Suzanne Tafel) was a teenager when she was a regular on the American television variety series At Home, which aired on pioneering New York City television 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]

During the 1958–59 season, Cummings portrayed Georgia, proprietress of the Golden Nugget Saloon, in the syndicated Western television series Union Pacific.[5]

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 Marshall Dillon's, in the TV Western series Gunsmoke in "The Peace Officer". She later appeared as Patty in the iconic 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone, "To Serve Man". Her final line in that episode was the climactic "It's a cookbook!"[6]

Personal life

In the late 1940s, Cummings was married to rodeo performer Wayne Dunafon.[3] She married actor Keith Larsen[7] on December 28, 1953, in Ensenada, Mexico. She was also married to actor Charles T. Pawley and accountant Robert E. Strasser.[1][8]

According to Cummings, she was a registered Republican,[2] and that growing up, she was raised Lutheran, but converted to Mormonism upon her marriage to Larsen.[2]

Filmography

Film
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1946	Merrily We Sing	Suzanne	Short
1951	An American in Paris	Patron at Flodair Café	Uncredited
1954	Security Risk	Joan Cochran
1955	Headline Hunters	Elsa - Receptionist	Uncredited
1956	Swamp Women	Marie
1956	Secret of Treasure Mountain	Tawana
1957	Utah Blaine	Angie Kinyon
1957	Tomahawk Trail	Ellen Carter
1958	Man from God's Country	Mary Jo Ellis
1959	Verboten!	Helga Schiller / Brent
1966	The Street Is My Beat	Cora
1974	A Time For Love	Woman	(final film role)
2003	Images of Indians: How Hollywood Stereotyped the Native American	Herself / Ellen Carter	TV movie documentary
Television
Year	Title	Role	Notes
1944-45	At Home	herself	early variety show
1955-57	Soldiers of Fortune	Simone LeBeau / Pilar	2 episodes
1955-60	The Millionaire	Virginia 'Ginny' Hendricks / Claire	2 episodes
1956	Science Fiction Theater	Ellen Barton / Peggy Kendler	2 episodes
1957	The Frank Sinatra Show	Miss Douglas	1 episode
1957-59	Perry Mason	Margaret Swaine / Lois Fenton	2 episodes
1958-59	Union Pacific	Georgia	33 episodes
1958-60	Bat Masterson	Rona Glyn / Lili Napoleon / Valorie Mitchell	3 episodes
1959	Man with a Camera	Monique Thaxter	Episode: "The Positive Negative"
1959	The Dennis O'Keefe Show	Babette Benoit	Episode: "The Marriage of Babette Benoit"
1960	The Untouchables	Hazel Stanley	Episode: "Little Egypt"
1960	Gunsmoke	Stella Carney	Episode: "The Peace Offer"
1960	Peter Gunn	Paula Garrett	Episode: "The Long Green Kill"
1961	Laramie	Holly Matthews	Episode: "Rimrock"
1961	Cheyenne	Helen Ransom	Episode: "Winchester Quarantine"
1961	Riverboat	Tekla Kronen	Episode: "End of a Dream"
1962	The Twilight Zone	Patty	Episode: "To Serve Man"
1964	McHale's Navy	Renee	Episode: "The Big Impersonation"

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Susan Cummings.

• Susan Cummings at IMDb

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