Susan Tyrrell, ?Fat City? Actress And Oscar-Nominated Cult Icon, Dies at 67
Oscar-nominated actress Susan Tyrrell, famous for her roles in Fat City and Cry Baby alongside Johnny Depp, died on Sunday, her family confirmed to People magazine. She was 67.
Tyrrell died Sunday in her home in Austin, Texas, where she has lived since 2008.
The actress was diagnosed with a rare disease of the bone marrow called thrombocythemia, which resulted in the amputation of both her legs in 2000.
Born Susan Jillian Creamer in San Francisco, the daughter of a William Morris agent, Tyrrell made her acting debut in 1962 at 17 alongside Art Carney in Time Out For Ginger in New York City. Tyrrell played roles in Shoot Out and Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me while working as a member of the Lincoln Center repertory.
Tyrrell reached the height of her career at age 26 with her fourth film, John Huston's 1972 film Fat City, which she played an alcoholic named Oma, for which she gained an Oscar nomination. According to People, Huston originally wanted to cast Faye Dunaway in the role of Oma, but Tyrrell insisted she was a better fit for the role opposite Stacy Keach since she was nine years younger than Dunaway.
After Fat City, Tyrrell appeared in cult classics like The Killer Inside Me, Andy Warhol's Bad, Islands in the Stream and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.
In 1990, Tyrrell played Johnny Depp's grandmother Ramona Ricketts in John Waters' Cry Baby. Her most recent role was in Kid-Thing, according to IMDB.
After being diagnosed with thrombocythemia in 2000, Tyrrell continued to work on films like Larry Charles' Masked and Anonymous.
Tyrrell was the subject of two major profiles: one in 1972 for The New York Times around the time of her Oscar nomination for Fat City and another in 2000 by writer Paul Cullum for LA Weekly.
The last thing my mother said to me was, 'SuSu, your life is a celebration of everything that is cheap and tawdry,' Tyrrell told Cullum for LA Weekly in 2000. I've always liked that, and I've always tried to live up to it.
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