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American actress and activist (1953–2022) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Susan Ruth Nussbaum (December 12, 1953 – April 28, 2022) was an American actress, author, playwright, and disability rights activist.[1][2]
Susan Nussbaum | |
|---|---|
Susan Nussbaum, from a 1984 newspaper photo | |
| Born | Susan Ruth Nussbaum December 12, 1953 |
| Died | April 28, 2022 (aged 68) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Playwright, novelist, activist |
| Father | Mike Nussbaum |
| Relatives | Karen Nussbaum (sister) |
Nussbaum was born in Chicago and raised in nearby Highland Park, the daughter of Mike Nussbaum and Annette Brenner Nussbaum. Her father, a former exterminator, became a well-known actor and director;[3] her mother was a publicist.[2] Her sister Karen Nussbaum is a noted labor leader.[4]
Nussbaum studied acting at Roosevelt University and Goodman School of Drama, both in Chicago. Nussbaum used a wheelchair after she survived being hit by a car in her twenties.[5] "When I became a wheelchair user in the late '70s," she wrote in a 2012 essay, "all I knew about being disabled I learned from reading books and watching movies, and that scared the shit out of me."[6]
As a performer, Nussbaum appeared a comic revue, Staring Back (1984),[7] as Emma Goldman in Frank Galati's She Always Said, Pablo (1987), in another comic review, The Plucky and Spunky Show (1990),[8] in her own one-woman show, Mishuganismo, directed by her father, in Activities of Daily Living (1994),[9] and in No One As Nasty (2000).[10] She worked with Marca Bristo on Access Living,[11][12] and started a group of disabled girls and young women, The Empowered FeFes.[13][14][15] She directed a production of Michael Vitali's G-Man! (1995),[9] and two productions of Mike Ervin's The History of Bowling (1999).[2][16]
Riva Lehrer painted a portrait of Nussbaum in 1998.[16][17] In 2008, Nussbaum was named one of Utne Reader's "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World." Her debut novel Good Kings, Bad Kings (2013) won the 2012 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.[18][19] The novel is set in an institution for disabled young people in the Chicago area.[20][21]
Nussbaum had a daughter, Taina Rodriguez.[24] She died from pneumonia in 2022, at the age of 68, at her home in Chicago.[1][2] She was buried at Westlawn Cemetery in Norridge Illinois.
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