Susan Cabot

Cabot was born Harriet Pearl Shapiro on July 9, 1927, to a Jewish family in Boston, Massachusetts.[1] She led an early life filled with turmoil; after her father abandoned their family, Cabot's mother Elizabeth was institutionalized, leaving Cabot orphaned.[1] She was subsequently raised in eight different foster homes,[2] and stated that she spent much of her childhood in the Bronx.[1] It was posthumously revealed that, while in foster care, Cabot suffered emotional and sexual abuse, which triggered intense post-traumatic stress disorder.[1]

Cabot attended high school in Manhattan,[2] and found employment as an illustrator of children's books.[2] She supplemented her income by working as a singer, performing at the Village Barn club in Manhattan.[2] She married her first husband, the artist Martin Sacker, on July 30, 1944, in Washington, DC, while still a minor.[3] Sacker was a childhood friend, and the marriage presented Cabot an opportunity to leave foster care.[3]

Cabot made her film debut in Twentieth Century Fox's film noir Kiss of Death (1947), which was filmed in New York, playing a bit part as a restaurant patron.[2] She was subsequently spotted performing at the Village Barn by a talent scout for Columbia Pictures, who cast her in On the Isle of Samoa (1950).[2] This role led to further Hollywood roles, with Cabot signing a contract with Universal Pictures.[2] Her first film with the studio was the 1951 Western Tomahawk.[2] The same year, Cabot divorced her husband, Sacker, and was subsequently romantically linked with King Hussein of Jordan for several years.[4]

Based on her performances in the On the Isle of Samoa and Tomahawk, Cabot appeared as a lead in a series of roles in similar Western and Arabian-themed films, such as The Battle at Apache Pass and The Duel at Silver Creek, and Son of Ali Baba (all 1952).[2] In 1953, she starred in a further two Westerns: Gunsmoke and Ride Clear of Diablo.[5]

Dissatisfied with her film offers, Cabot asked to be released from her contract in 1954.[2] She returned to New York, and resumed her stage career with a role in a Leonard Kantor-directed, Washington DC-based production of Harold Robbins' A Stone for Danny Fisher.[2] Cabot studied acting with Sanford Meisner in New York,[6] and continued to pursue a stage career, appearing in a short-lived run of the musical Shangri-La in Boston in 1959.[7]

Cabot returned to Los Angeles and resumed a film career in the latter part of the 1950s, appearing in a series of films for Roger Corman: Carnival Rock, Sorority Girl, The Viking Women and the Sea Serpent (all 1957), War of the Satellites, and Machine-Gun Kelly (both 1958).[2] The same year, she had a lead role in the Western Fort Massacre, opposite Joel McCrea.[2] Cabot's final film role was in Corman's horror film The Wasp Woman (1959).[2] Speaking on her work with Corman, Cabot recalled it as "Totally mad. It was like a European movie," though she stated that Corman was "some kind of maverick... he's very bright and fast-thinking."[5]

Cabot bore her only child, a son, in 1964.[8] In 1968, she married her second husband Michael Roman with whom she raised her son, Timothy Scott Roman, before again divorcing in 1983.[9]

In the last years of her life, Cabot suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts, and was prey to a wide range of irrational, powerful fears. She was under a licensed psychologist's care, but the psychologist found her so troubled and ill that the sessions became "emotionally draining."[10] Cabot became increasingly unable to care for herself; the interior of her home was littered with years of trash, and spoiled food lay everywhere.[10] In late 1986, Cabot's mental health deteriorated significantly.[10] Despite the squalor of the home's interior, Cabot still maintained a "adequate" income despite having retired from acting, largely due to real estate investments and her fascination with vintage cars, which she regularly acquired, restored, and resold.[11]