Susan Cabot

Author Tom Weaver writes about his acquaintance with Susan Cabot and her son in the book "Lost Souls of Horror and the Gothic" (Jefferson NC: McFarland & Co., 2016).

A biopic on her life titled "Black Oasis" was announced in 2007, with Stephan Elliott directing and Rose McGowan starring as Cabot. The project never materialized.

In 1968, she married her second husband, actor Michael Roman, but the marriage broke up in the early 1980s, in part due to Cabot's increasing mental fragility and paranoia. Cabot had reportedly been taking a growth hormone prescribed for her son, possibly a factor in heightening her mental illness.

In 1964 she gave birth to her son, Timothy, who suffered from dwarfism. He bludgeoned her to death with a weightlifting bar while she slept in the bedroom of her Encino (CA) home. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter but cited years of mental and physical abuse by her as his defense. He received a three-year suspended sentence and was placed on probation for the crime.

Her personal life included a well publicized relationship with King Hussein of Jordan in 1959, which ended when he found out that she was Jewish.

Roger Corman lured her back to Hollywood to play the lead in the melodramatic rock-'n-'roller Carnival Rock (1957) and she stayed on to star in five more films for the enterprising young producer-director.

While in Hollywood Cabot was also signed for the role of an Indian maiden in Universal's Tomahawk (1951) with Van Heflin. Subsequently signed to an exclusive contract by Universal, Cabot co-starred in a long string of films opposite leading men like John Lund, Tony Curtis and Audie Murphy. Inevitably, she became fed up with the succession of western and Arabian Nights roles, asked for a release from her Universal pact and accepted an offer from Harold Robbins to star in his play "A Stone for Danny Fisher" in New York.

Maxwell Arnow, a casting director for Columbia Pictures, spotted Cabot at the Village Barn, and a co-starring role in that studio's B-grade South Seas drama On the Isle of Samoa (1950) resulted.

Susan Cabot was born in Boston and raised in a series of eight foster homes. She attended high school in Manhattan, where she took an interest in dramatics and joined the school dramatic club. Later, while trying to decide between a career in music or art, she illustrated children's books during the day and sang at Manhattan's Village Barn at night. It was at this same time that she made her film debut as an extra in Fox's New York-made Kiss of Death (1947) and worked in New York-based television.