Suzanne Hahn, Stage & Screen Actress, Winn Parish, LA Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** >From the January 5, 1955 Winn Parish Enterprise-News American Winnfield Actress Gets Roles on TV and Stage What happens when a hopeful young dramatics student with a lot of talent and unlimited ambition goes right from college to New York to seek fame and fortune before the footlights and camera? No one could give a better answer to that question than Winnfield's own Suzanne Hahn, blonde and charming daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Alvin Hahn. In a New Year's Day interview with an Enterprise-News American reporter, Miss Hahn, who visited here over the holidays, recounted some of the highlights of the 21 months she has spent in New York. Modest about her accomplishments, Miss Hahn said at the outset, "I haven't done anything yet. I hope some day I'll have a good story for you." Actually, this promising young actress has done far better than most girls who start out, to make the theater their life work. Now, after nearly two years of experience-much of it in minor roles, with weeks in between seeking opportunities to act-things are looking up. She even had some leading roles opposite established stars. Back at LSU, where Miss Hahn majored in speech and Spanish, she had the lead in such plays as "Salome," "Medea," "Ghosts," "Ladies in Retirement," "Pygmalion," and "Insect Comedy," with the University players. Her beauty and personality won her the honor of being an LSU favorite three years while at LSU. In the spring of 1953 Miss Hahn made the big jump to New York and immediately settled down to live at the Studio Club, at East 77th Street, where she was in the company of other girls with similar ambitions. Then followed four dreary months of haunting the offices of producers, directors, and studio executives. Nothing happened except sore feet and disappointment after disappointment. Sometimes, when she called back to see an executive the second time, he didn't even recognize her because he saw so many girls looking for jobs every day. About the only consolation was that the other girls had the same luck. First Break Finally, Miss Hahn got her first break at Columbia University work shop, where she was doing a scene one day to keep in practice. James Egan, head of the Abbey Players, saw her and offered her a professional stock job-her first. She had to join Actors' Equity, a union, and went off to Dobbs Ferry, new York to do some acting. She found that her assignment consisted of nearly everything from washing floors to acting as a baby-sitter for children of the theater folks. But she did have a small part. >From September to December, back in busy New York, she continued looking for a chance to act, but again nothing happened. On December 18, 1953, Miss Hahn remembers that she went to her mail box and found a telegram stating, "Please report to Hoboken, New Jersey, for moving picture." That was a red letter day. The telegram was from Ward Kemp Studio, but it had been in the box for four hours. She rushed to catch a bus and barely missed it. The day was gray, freezing cold and she thought she had missed a real opportunity. An assistant producer for this very film also was late, however, on the same bus stop corner. They arrived together in Hoboken and she got the job, a bit part in "The Waterfront Story," later changed to "On The Waterfront." Miss Hahn said that there were 600 longshoremen in the picture, and her role was that of a gun moll who "walked from the bar to the nickelodeon and hung over it." She didn't mind when she found that such well knowns as Carl Malden, Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint and other stars were in the picture. She worked for three weeks in this film. Featured With Steve Cochran A former LSU classmate, John Dunaway of Bogalusa, help Miss Hahn get her next chance. Mr. Dunaway worked in the oil department at the office for Joseph P. Kennedy, then Ambassador to the Court of St. James, England, and through his influence, she landed her first big role. It was a fill-in assignment but she was featured with the star, Steve Cochran, in a play at the Somerset Playhouse in Somerset, Mass. This was in the summer of 1954 and her performance opened more offers. Then followed some work in commercials on TV film, for Alka Seltzer, Biltmore Studio, and a Guy Lombardo film, in which she had a bit part. She did "Blue Angel," a TV show with Orson Bean and Billy DeWolf, for CBS. She was a hat check girl in a comic skit. Next came a part in "Fatal In My Fashion," on Studio One, CBS, in which "I wore a Jacque Fath gown and paraded around." Late in 1954 Miss Hahn played in "Talltale Clue" on CBS-TV." She was a night club singer, and really sang, "I've been taking singing lessons," she said. Charles Martin was the producer of "Telltale Clue," Miss Hahn explained. When she applied for a job at his office, she reminded him that back at LSU she had won the Philip Morris Award for acting on a program produced by Mr. Martin. "I think that rates a job," he told her. In the play "My Three Angels," a stage show put on by a stock company at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, Miss Hahn played the part of Louisa with Victory Jory. A month ago she started trying out for Broadway shows, and just before she came home for Christmas, she received the script for "Beetle Bailey," a TV show in which Miss Hahn will play the young sweetheart of Beetle. She will have to go to the west coast sometime this summer for filming of the show. She's planning to go if everything materializes as planned. Early this week, though, Miss Hahn returned to New York City to keep an appointment for a reading of "Three Sisters," at the Fourth Street Playhouse. Being home, she said, has made her appreciate her home town more than ever. That lvoe for the theater, however, has kept her eyes fastened on the big city theater lights. Louisiana already is well represented on the stage and screen, she says. Among them are: Val Dufor, who is remembered for "First Love," a NBC serial; Joan Woodward (now Mrs. Paul Newman), a roommate of Miss Hahn's at LSU, who is getting buildup as a star at 20th Century Fox; Josh Logan, producer from Mansfield; Frank Carrero, New Orleans, a Studio One actor; Pat Fowler, stage manager for "Seven Year Itch;" Ross Maggio, Natchitoches, music director for Columbia Pictures in Hollywood; and Gene Callahan, Baton Rouge, set director for Omnibus, of the Ford Foundation. (Miss Hahn eventually married, and divorced, John Asten, of "Addams Family" fame. Mr. Asten later married Patty Duke. Submitted by Greggory Ellis Davies, Winnfield, Winn Parish, LA.)