40 Fun Facts About Famous Susans

Which star of the Alien films was born with the first name Susan and renamed herself after a Great Gatsby character?

Sigourney Weaver took the name at the age of 14 from a minor character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel. Her breakthrough role was Ellen Ripley, a part first meant for another actress.

Susan, an 18th-birthday present to the future Queen Elizabeth II, founded a royal line of which dog breed?

Corgi after corgi owned by the Queen descended from Susan. She even joined the royal honeymoon in 1947, hidden under rugs in the open carriage.

Susan B. Anthony was arrested in her hometown of Rochester, New York, for doing what?

Voting in an election was legal only for men in 1872, and the judge fined her $100. She told him she would never pay a dollar of it, and she never did.

Fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson found and gave her name to Sue, a skeleton of which dinosaur at Chicago's Field Museum?

Tyrannosaurus rex fossils rarely come as complete as Sue, with over 90% recovered by bulk. Hendrickson spotted the bones in a South Dakota cliff while her team was away repairing their truck.

Susan Boyle stunned the Britain's Got Talent judges at her first audition with a song from which stage musical?

Les Misérables supplied the ballad, and more than 10 million viewers watched her sing it. Though the clear favourite, she finished second in the final behind the dance troupe Diversity.

Susan Ross dies after licking the cheap wedding-invitation envelopes her fiancé George bought in which sitcom?

Seinfeld gave her one of television's darkest exits. The daughter of wealthy parents, she had earlier been fired from NBC because of her relationship with George Costanza.

Which pop star made her first major film appearance playing the title role in 1985's Desperately Seeking Susan?

Madonna beat Ellen Barkin and Jennifer Jason Leigh to the part of Susan. The film's costumes were influenced in part by her own early style.

Susan Sarandon won her Best Actress Oscar for playing the nun Sister Helen Prejean in which death-row drama?

Dead Man Walking brought her the award at the fifth attempt. She had already been nominated for Atlantic City, Thelma & Louise, Lorenzo's Oil and The Client.

Susan Pevensie and her three siblings step through a wardrobe into which magical land in C. S. Lewis's novels?

Narnia crowns her Queen Susan the Gentle. Father Christmas gives her a bow with arrows that never miss their target and a magical horn that brings aid when blown.

Susan Wojcicki, later chief executive of YouTube, rented out her Menlo Park garage to the founders of which company?

Google paid her $1,700 a month for the garage in 1998. She joined the company, and later urged it to buy the video site she would go on to run.

The black-eyed Susan is the official state flower of which US state, where the Preakness Stakes is run each May?

Maryland adopted the flower in 1918. The Preakness winner's blanket only imitates it with chrysanthemums, because real black-eyed Susans are not in bloom in May.

Susan Eloise Hinton, writing as S. E. Hinton while still in high school, produced which novel about Greasers and Socs?

The Outsiders was inspired by two rival gangs at her own school in Tulsa. She wanted to empathise with the Greasers, so she wrote from their point of view.

Susan Lucci played Erica Kane for more than four decades on which ABC daytime soap opera?

All My Children earned her 21 Daytime Emmy nominations for lead actress but only one win, in 1999. Her losing streak became a running joke that Saturday Night Live sent up.

The charity founded by Nancy Brinker in memory of her sister Susan G. Komen funds research into which disease?

Breast cancer killed Susan Goodman Komen in 1980, at the age of 36. Her younger sister believed more knowledge of the illness might have helped, and started the foundation two years later.

Susan Storm, who can turn invisible and project force fields, is a founding member of which Marvel superhero team?

The Fantastic Four made her Marvel's first female superhero of the Silver Age of comics. Her hot-headed younger brother Johnny is a teammate, and she married another, Reed Richards.

Which actress won a Golden Globe in 2005 for playing Susan Mayer, a resident of Wisteria Lane, on Desperate Housewives?

Teri Hatcher beat two of her own castmates, Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman, to that award. She had auditioned in January 2004 and impressed the show's creator immediately.

Loretta Long played Susan Robinson from the very first episode in 1969 until 2016 on which educational television show?

Sesame Street was not her only job at first, because she kept on substitute teaching. Pupils who had watched her on television before school were confused to find her in class that morning.

Which child actress played Susan, the girl raised not to believe in Santa Claus, in 1947's Miracle on 34th Street?

Natalie Wood was eight years old when she co-starred in the Christmas classic, having begun acting at four. It remained her best-known film as a child.

Which punk-era singer, born Susan Ballion in London, fronted the Banshees and later formed the Creatures?

Siouxsie Sioux grew up in suburban Chislehurst, a place she later said inspired intense hatred. She was her band's vocalist and main lyricist.

Before L.A. Law, former model Susan Dey played teenager Laurie alongside David Cassidy in which 1970s sitcom?

The Partridge Family made her a teen star, yet co-star Shirley Jones wrote that Dey was the only cast member who consistently refused to take part in its reunions.

Susan Olsen played Cindy, the youngest of six siblings, for the full run of which sitcom about a blended household?

The Brady Bunch cast her at just under eight years old. As an adult she said that playing Cindy made friendships difficult for her as a child, and she most disliked the episode in which Cindy tattles.

Susan Bunch, played by Jessica Hecht, is the partner of Ross's ex-wife Carol in which long-running sitcom?

Friends nearly had Jessica Hecht in a much bigger part, as she originally auditioned to play Monica.

The rotating tabletop tray known as a lazy Susan is a common sight in which cuisine's formal restaurants worldwide?

Chinese restaurants favour it for shared dishes such as Cantonese dim sum. Legend credits Thomas Jefferson with inventing it for a daughter, though he never had a lazy Susan at Monticello.

The Susan Constant was the largest of three ships that carried English colonists to found which Virginia settlement?

Jamestown was founded after she crossed the Atlantic with the smaller Godspeed and Discovery. Disney's Pocahontas shows the ship too, but under the wrong captain.

Susan Butcher became the first musher to win which Alaskan sled dog race four times in five years?

The Iditarod had cost her dearly in 1985, when a moose killed two of her dogs and forced her to withdraw. She came back to win the very next race.

Which actress earned an Oscar nomination for playing New Yorker writer Susan Orlean in the 2002 film Adaptation?

Meryl Streep's Orlean has a romance with an orchid poacher that the screenplay invented. The film grew out of Charlie Kaufman's struggle to adapt her book The Orchid Thief.

Susan Cain's 2012 bestseller Quiet argues that modern Western culture undervalues which kind of person?

Introverts found a champion in Cain, a former Wall Street lawyer whose own difficulties with public speaking had made Harvard Law School a trial.

Susan Foreman, played by Carole Ann Ford, is the hero's granddaughter in which BBC science fiction series?

Doctor Who made the pair relatives because writer Anthony Coburn felt an old man travelling the galaxy with a young girl for company looked not quite proper.

Susan Sontag's 1964 essay for the Partisan Review brought which aesthetic sensibility to mainstream attention?

Camp had hardly broken into print before then, Sontag wrote, apart from a two-page sketch in a Christopher Isherwood novel. The essay was her first major work.

Television writer Susan Harris created Soap and which Emmy-winning 1980s sitcom with Bea Arthur in a lead role?

The Golden Girls was her most financially successful show, although chronic fatigue syndrome limited how much she could take part in its production.

Susan Alexander, an amateur singer whose husband forces her into opera, appears in which Hollywood classic?

Citizen Kane has the newspaper tycoon build a Chicago opera house for her. When his own critic writes a bad review of her debut, he sacks him and finishes the review himself.

Susan Calvin, chief robopsychologist at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, appears in stories by which author?

Isaac Asimov made her the main character of many robot stories later collected in I, Robot. In his fictional history she was born in 1982, the year her employer was incorporated.

Susan Polgar and her sisters Judit and Sofia were trained from early childhood by their father to master which game?

Chess made her, in 1991, only the third woman awarded the grandmaster title. Her father's experiment set out to prove that anyone trained early enough in one subject could achieve exceptional things.

Graphic designer Susan Kare created the icons and typefaces for the first model of which 1980s personal computer?

Apple Macintosh work began when she was asked to hand-draw a few icons in exchange for an Apple II computer. Her business cards later read Macintosh Artist.

Stuntwoman Susan Backlinie played Chrissie, the swimmer attacked in the opening scene of which Steven Spielberg film?

Jaws needed three days to shoot her scene, with ten men on each of two ropes tugging her from side to side. Spielberg called it one of the most dangerous stunts he ever directed.

Susan Hill wrote which ghost story, later a West End play that ran for decades and a film starring Daniel Radcliffe?

The Woman in Black opened in London's West End in 1989 and ran until March 2023, the second-longest run of any non-musical play there after The Mousetrap.

Susan Sto Helit, the Grim Reaper's granddaughter and a pupil at Quirm College, appears in which fantasy book series?

Discworld introduces her in Soul Music as a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl. Her parents, Mort and Ysabell, chose a Latin family motto that tells people not to fear the reaper.

Susan Rice served as ambassador to the United Nations and then national security advisor under which US president?

Barack Obama named her to the security post in 2013. A Rhodes Scholar, she had earned a doctorate in international relations at Oxford.

Engineer Susan Fowler's blog post about workplace harassment led to the ouster of which company's founder in 2017?

Uber had hired her as a site reliability engineer in late 2015. Her 3,000-word post was widely shared and ultimately brought down chief executive Travis Kalanick.

Susan Ford held her high school senior prom in the East Room of which famous residence, her home at the time?

The White House was her home as the teenage daughter of President Gerald Ford. She also served as its official hostess while her mother was in hospital.