From Alfred Hitchcock "Hitch Hike" 1960

What a cutie in her poodle skirt ... 23 years old

and a few of her as a model +-

Va va voom! She was quite the hottie. She looked pretty good in the film "If It's Tuesday This Must Be Belgium" from the late 60s prior to becoming Emily Hartley.

I just watched her in The Birds, saw her as I never did as a pre-teen !

From 1967 The Invaders S1 E3

Here's Suzanne in the 1966 film Nevada Smith. Really lovely!

280008280009

How did Bob end up with her (the character not Newhart who was a comic genius).

They have know each other for a time.

Bob "Emily?"

Emily "Yes, Bob?"

Bob " Would I and you, I mean you and I, maybe uh, yeah, you and I like to go out and have dinner tomorrow."

Emily "I'd love to!"

Bob "Oh really, yeah, would be great, I have a car, pick you up at your house?"

Emily "Sure, that would be lovely."

Then Emily walks away and Bob's best friend played by Don Rickles slaps him upside the head and goes "Will you quit stuttering you Irish Catholic? She's hot, dont mess this up!"

My first awareness of of Suzanne was in hearing g-rated "va-va-voom" comments from Red Skelton on his show in the mid 1960s. Never even placed a face to the name. Until, that is, about 2 years ago when making my investigation of the old David Jansen show "the Fugitive". Appearing in season two, episode two, my very first opportunity to put visuals onto that name.

https://i.imgur.com/gHP4V6n.png

Quite the Hottie!! And then of course, once becoming aware, I've since started picking her face out of the crowd on other appearances. Notably as others have mentioned, on the Steven McQueen flick Nevada Smith

She is a real sweetie.

However, she really doesn't strike me as a glamour pot.


IMO she, much like Jaques Bergerac, seems to get a lot of mileage out of American's perceptions of the French being passionate people

Here's young Suzanne in her 1961 episode of Route 66, seen with Claude Akins. I like what Suzanne is wearing here, very basic yet so attractive:

285023

Barry Kemp said that in casting Newhart, they first came up with someone who was physically really close to Suzanne, but walked away from that idea:

https://youtu.be/L1QDJtLrm38

I've wondered who that was - Adrienne Barbeau? Jessica Walter? I don't know.

How about Paula Prentiss - she was very close to Suzanne Pleshette's age, and closer to Bob's age than Mary Frann (needless to say). More importantly, she had great TV sitcom experience. Here's how Paula looked in 1974:
285053

And Paula in 1980. A very attractive woman!
285054

Yes, I thought of Prentiss, but she was huge. - 5'10"! Not many actresses of that height, then.

LOL - I should have realized Paula is way above average in height. Richard Benjamin has commented on how he fell for her, seeing her remarkably long legs; I forget how he put it - "on and on" maybe.

Maybe we should look into more actresses who had guested in MTM shows, like Mary Frann's memorable episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Production people like to look to actors who they've enjoyed having on one or more of their series before.

Well, there was Valerie Harper.

There was also Yvonne Wilder. I think she had just one MTM credit, but it was a Mary Tyler Moore Show episode, and she had been in lots of stuff:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0928648/?ref_=tt_cl_t_6