Susan Cabot

Biography

​Susan Cabot (born Harriet Pearl Shapiro; July 9, 1927 – December 10, 1986) was an American film, stage, and television actress. She rose to prominence for her roles in a variety of Western films, including Tomahawk (1951), The Duel at Silver Creek (1952), and Gunsmoke (1953). After severing her contract with Universal Pictures in the mid-1950s, Cabot returned to performing in theater in New York. She subsequently returned to Hollywood in the later part of the decade, and appeared in a series of films by director Roger Corman, such as Sorority Girl (1957), War of the Satellites, and Machine-Gun Kelly (both 1958). She made her final film appearance in Corman's horror feature, The Wasp Woman (1959). Cabot had a seven-year affair with King Hussein of Jordan and their only child was born out of wedlock in 1964. She received $1500 in monthly support from Hussein. In 1968, she married her second husband Michael Roman with whom she raised her son, Timothy Scott Roman, before again divorcing in 1983. Cabot spent the following two decades largely in seclusion, though she did appear in off-Broadway theatre in the early 1960s, and made a 1970 television appearance on the series Bracken's World. By the 1980s, Cabot was suffering from severe mental illness, including depression, suicidal thoughts, and irrational phobias. On December 10, 1986, Cabot's only child, 22-year-old Timothy Roman, bludgeoned her to death in their Los Angeles home with a weightlifting bar after Cabot purportedly awoke in a panicked state and attacked him. Roman, who had dwarfism and suffered pituitary gland problems, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and was sentenced to three years' probation for his matricide.

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