I felt a pang when I read about the passing of actress Susan Anspach. She was felled three days ago (Monday, 4.2) by a heart attack. She was 75. The Hollywood Reporter obit was only posted today so I guess the news is just getting around. Anspach’s son Caleb Goddard, whose father is Jack Nicholson, announced her death earlier today.
Anspach made her mark in Hal Ashby‘s The Landlord (’70), Bob Rafelson‘s Five Easy Pieces (’70) and especially Paul Mazursky‘s Blume in Love (’73). She was quite the vibey presence in these films, very silky and sexy with the ability to suggest a complex and particular inner life. To more than a few she was an object of erotic fascination. There, I’ve said it.
No offense but I don’t even remember Anspach in Jeremy Kagan‘s The Big Fix.
Her last performance that left a significant impression was in Dusan Makavejev‘s Montenegro (’81), in which she played a bored housewife who gets into “slut-strutting” (a term used by a smart female critic) during a visit to the country formerly known as Yugoslavia (i.e., Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia).
I’m sorry but sometimes the end comes suddenly. Life is short, but then you knew that. Wings of a dove.