Miss Susan

1 9 5 1 (USA)
218 x 15 minute episodes

This five-day-a-week NBC series told the dramatic story of Susan Martin (Susan Peters), a wheelchair-bound criminal attorney who returned to her hometown of Martinsville, Ohio.

Other key characters were Susan’s love interest, Bill Carter (Mark Roberts), and the beloved family housekeeper, Laura.

The series – broadcast from 12 March to 28 December 1951 – was the first series to star a real-life handicapped person.

Susan Peters was a promising actress in the mid-1940s who had a contract at MGM and an Oscar nomination under her belt when she was shot in a hunting accident near San Diego in 1945 and permanently paralysed from the waist down.

She died on 23 October 1952, a few months after this series was cancelled. She was just 31.

Susan Martin
Susan Peters
Bill Carter
Mark Roberts
Miss Peck (Susan’s nurse)
Katherine Gill
Laura, the housekeeper
Helen Ray
Natalie Priest