Susan Strasberg, the daughter of legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg and an accomplished actress, has died of cancer in New York. She was 60.
At 17, Strasberg electrified Broadway audiences with her performance in the title role of The Diary of Anne Frank in 1955. That same year, she appeared in two hit Hollywood films, The Cobweb and Picnic.
The slender, petite brunette grew up around such acting icons as Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando, who had attended her father’s famous “Method” acting school in New York, The Actors Studio.
In a career spanning four decades, she appeared in more than 30 feature films, including Stage Struck, The Trip and The Brotherhood, nearly two dozen television programs, and a variety of plays, including a tour of the Broadway hit drama, Agnes of God.
Ms. Strasberg, who also lived in Los Angeles and San Francisco, died in her apartment in New York City.
Born on May 22, 1938, in New York City, she was the daughter of Lee and Paula Strasberg. Her world took a turbulent turn about 1954, when her parents “adopted” a 28-year-old shapely blonde named Marilyn Monroe, who had come to the Actors Studio.
Ms. Strasberg recounted their close friendship and rivalry in a 1992 book titled Marilyn and Me: Sisters, Rivals, Friends.
She appeared in the Broadway play Time Remembered in 1957 with Richard Burton and Helen Hayes.
In her 1980 memoir, Bittersweet, she frankly chronicled her ill-fated affair with Burton as well as her violence-marred, short-lived marriage to actor Christopher Jones, with whom she had a daughter, Jennifer.
Besides her daughter, she is survived by a brother, her stepmother and two half brothers.
