I wasn’t that familiar with this Hollywood Film Star – Suzan Ball – and in reality she did not make many films – but I have come across her in a publication when she had just married Actor Richard Long 1n 1954

Sadly their happiness did not last long as she died on cancer in just over  a year after they married. She was only 21 years old.

They do look very happy in the pictures above and she talks of their life together.

Suzan Ball was born In Jamestown, New York in 1934 In 1947 her family moved to North HJollywood just round the corner from Universal-International. 

In 1951 she got a small uncredited part in Mongram’s Aladdin and His Lamp – and later that same year she signed a contract with Universal-International.  She appeard in Untamed Frontier.

In 1953 she fell deeply in love with Anthony Quinn during the filming of City Beneath the Sea but he was married at that time. The continue their relationship for about a year

There have been many sad stories come out of Hollywood and Suzan Ball’s is one of the saddest.

 ABOVE -with Anthony Quinn in City Beneath the Sea

ABOVE:  With Anthony Quinn

It was whilst she was rehearsing a dance number for East of Sumatra (1953) that Suzan suffered an injury to her right leg. She ignored the injury, but a short while after that she was a passenger in a car that was side-swiped and the same knee struck a door handle. It was painful but she still did not see a doctor about it.

Later that same year she made War Arrow with Jeff Chandler and during the shoot the leg began to give her serious trouble. She reluctantly sought medical advice and was informed by doctors that the limb had developed tumours. When she slipped on some spilled water at home and broke the same leg, Suzan was rushed to hospital and operated on to remove the tumours. The operation was not a success, however, and on January 12, 1954 her leg was amputated. She was still only 19 years old.

with Anthony Quinn again in East of Sumatra (1953)

Suzan made only one picture after the amputation, a western with Victor Mature titled Chief Crazy Horse (1955). In it she played Black Shawl, Crazy Horse’s wife. A double was used for scenes that required her to walk. For close-ups in those scenes she would move her shoulders to simulate a walking motion. The producers wanted to replace her with Susan Cabot but director George Sherman flatly refused to do so.

with Victor Mature in Chief Crazy Horse (1955)

She had become engaged to Richard Long who had stuck steadfastly by her and, in April 1954, they were married.

The bride insisted she walk down the aisle unaided – fitted with an artificial limb beneath her wedding dress.

However, two months later she collapsed and doctors found that the cancer had spread to her lungs.

‘I felt no pity for myself’, she told an interviewer. ‘Nor have I any feeling of regret. Sometimes I pondered, ‘Why has this thing happened to me?’ But it was never in terms of a complaint. I sought a real answer. It is not an easy one to find, and perhaps I will never know.’

with Richard Long

Universal rented a sumptuous home to enable Suzan to spend her final weeks in luxury.  The pressure on her husband was intense.

She died six months after her 21^st birthday on August 5, 1955.

Just a few days earlier  Robert Francis  had died at 25 in a plane crash, and in September, 24 year-old James Dean would be killed in an car accident.  A tragic three months in Hollywood’s history.

Richard Long later married Mara Corday who had been a close friend after they had met during rehearsals for a play ‘The Big Knife’

They went on to have three children together

In 1974 Richard Long suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 47.