Susan Anspach made direct speech compelling, bringing naturalness to women too easily labelled independent or sophisticated. We recommend starting with Five Easy Pieces, allowing for the film’s occasional indulgence of its difficult leading man.
Fi1m perspective
Anspach delivers a sharp line as if saying it plainly were enough. She does not make the delivery conspicuous, and the naturalness helps us believe in the woman speaking. In Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces (1970), her Catherine Van Oost brings emotional directness to a drama centred on Jack Nicholson’s difficult man. That matters in a film which sometimes gives his behaviour rather too much latitude. We felt its discomfort more keenly because Anspach made the feelings in Catherine’s scenes seem immediate.
Our enthusiasm for Five Easy Pieces rests partly on the performances’ ability to keep that difficult company interesting. Rafelson’s humour helps, too, though neither virtue quite excuses the indulgence. Anspach’s contribution deserves attention on its own terms, rather than treating Catherine as another reason to be interested in him. Her plainness gives us room to consider what the woman feels, without being distracted by how the actor is showing it. We would have welcomed more work that made such good use of that quality.
Her early film career offered several versions of the independent, sophisticated woman. She made her film debut in Hal Ashby’s The Landlord (1970), with Five Easy Pieces providing her breakthrough that same year. In Play It Again, Sam (1972), she was Nancy, the ex-wife of Woody Allen’s character; Paul Mazursky’s Blume in Love (1973) gave her the more prominent part of Nina Blume. The latter drew on her strength in relationship-driven comedy. These were suitable parts.
Film roles became fewer and less prominent after the 1970s, although Dušan Makavejev’s black comedy Montenegro (1981) gave her a lead as Marilyn Jordan. She continued in television series and films through the 1980s, with sporadic later appearances. That makes for a less satisfying career to follow than the early work promises, but fewer parts tell us little about an actor’s ability. Start with Five Easy Pieces, and allow Catherine some of the attention Nicholson so readily attracts.
Biography
Susan Anspach was an American actress who worked in film, television and theatre. She studied music and drama at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and began her career in New York with off-Broadway appearances, including in the original production of Hair.
Anspach first came to prominence playing Catherine Van Oost in Five Easy Pieces (1970). Her subsequent film roles included Nancy in Play It Again, Sam (1972) and Nina Blume in Blume in Love (1973). She also appeared in television series such as The Slap Maxwell Story and Murder, She Wrote, and continued working into the 2010s. She died in Los Angeles in 2018.
