Suzanne Pleshette

Suzanne Pleshette was born on January 31, 1937, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, to Geraldine (née Kaplan) and Eugene Pleshette. Her parents were Jewish, the children of emigrants from Russia and Austria-Hungary. Her mother was a dancer and artist who performed under the stage name Geraldine Rivers. Her father was a stage manager of the Paramount Theater in Manhattan and of the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn, and later, a network executive. She graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts and attended Syracuse University for one semester, then transferred to Finch College. She later graduated from the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in Manhattan and was under the tutelage of acting teacher Sanford Meisner. The Boston Globe described her appearance and demeanor as sardonic and her voice as sultry. Five-foot, four-inch Pleshette began her career at age 20 as a stage actress. She made her Broadway debut in Meyer Levin's 1957 play Compulsion, adapted from his novel inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case. The following year, she performed in the debut of The Cold Wind and the Warm by S. N. Behrman at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, directed by Harold Clurman and produced by Robert Whitehead. In 1959, she was featured in the comedy Golden Fleecing, starring Constance Ford and Tom Poston. (Poston would eventually become her third husband.) That same year, she was one of two finalists for the role of Louise/Gypsy in the original production of Gypsy. During the run of The Cold Wind and the Warm, she spent mornings taking striptease lessons from Jerome Robbins for the role in Gypsy. In his autobiography, Arthur Laurents, the play's author stated, "It came down to between Suzanne Pleshette and Sandra Church. Suzanne was the better actress, but Sandra was the better singer. We went with Sandra." In February 1961, she succeeded Anne Bancroft as Anne Sullivan Macy opposite 14-year-old Patty Duke's Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker.

Her early screen credits include The Geisha Boy (1958), Rome Adventure (1962), Fate Is the Hunter (1964), and Youngblood Hawke (1962), but she was best known at that time for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense film The Birds (1963). Immediately following The Birds, Pleshette was cast in 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), a comedy film co-starring Tony Curtis and Phil Silvers, which Curtis was producing through his own film production company, Curtis Enterprises. 40 Pounds of Trouble was the first motion picture ever filmed at Disneyland, and was distributed by Universal-International Pictures in late 1962. She worked with Steve McQueen in the 1966 western drama film Nevada Smith, was nominated for a Laurel Award for her starring performance in the comedy If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium opposite Ian McShane, and co-starred with James Garner in a pair of films, Support Your Local Gunfighter(1971) and the drama Mister Buddwing (1966).

Pleshette's first screen role was in the episode "Night Rescue" (December 5, 1957) of the CBS adventure/drama television series Harbormaster, starring Barry Sullivan and Paul Burke. Other early television appearances include Playhouse 90, Decoy, Have Gun – Will Travel, One Step Beyond, Riverboat, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Tab Hunter Show, Channing, Ben Casey, Naked City, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, the pilot episode of The Wild Wild West, and Dr. Kildare, for which she was nominated for her first Emmy Award. She guest-starred more than once as different characters in each of the following 1960s TV series: Route 66, The Fugitive, The Invaders, The F.B.I., Columbo (Dead Weight) (1971) and The Name of the Game.

1970 game show appearances include It Takes Two, with her husband, and Name Droppers.

On May 19, 1971, TV producers saw her on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and noticed a certain chemistry between Suzanne and Johnny. She was cast as the wife of Newhart's character on the popular CBS sitcom The Bob Newhart Show (1972–1978) for all six seasons, as part of CBS television's Saturday night lineup. During this time she was nominated twice for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She reprised her role of Emily Hartley in the final episode of Newhart's subsequent comedy series, Newhart, in which viewers discovered that the entire later series had been her husband Bob's dream when he awakens next to her in the bedroom set from the earlier series.

During this time she starred in films such as the western comedy Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971) starring James Garner. She also starred in a number of Walt Disney family films, most notably in The Shaggy D.A. (1976) acting opposite Dean Jones and Tim Conway. She was the lead actress in the comedies Hot Stuff (1979) opposite Dom DeLuise and Ossie Davis and Oh, God! Book II (1980) starring George Burns. Her 1984 situation comedy, Suzanne Pleshette Is Maggie Briggs, was canceled after seven episodes. In 1989, she played the role of Christine Broderick in the NBC drama, Nightingales, which lasted one season. In 1990, Pleshette portrayed Manhattan hotelier Leona Helmsley in the television movie Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean, which garnered her nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film.

In addition, she starred opposite Hal Linden in the 1994 sitcom The Boys Are Back. She had a starring role in Good Morning, Miami, as Mark Feuerstein's grandmother Claire Arnold in season one and played the mother of Katey Sagal's character in the ABC sitcom 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter following John Ritter's death. Pleshette provided the voices of Yubaba and Zeniba in the English dub of Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki's Academy Award-winning film Spirited Away and the voice of Zira in Disney's direct-to-video film The Lion King II: Simba's Pride in 1998 (replacing Kathleen Turner) and sang the song "My Lullaby". In her last role she appeared as the estranged mother of Megan Mullally's character Karen Walker in three episodes of the NBC sitcom Will & Grace.