Susan Tyrrell is one of the great scene stealers of American cinema. It doesn’t matter who she’s (supposedly) sharing the screen with, all eyes will be on Tyrrell. Susan Tyrrell possesses a unique charisma, let’s just say, and if I had to pick my favorite actress, I might have to say it’s her (maybe tied with Ruth Gordon). She’s great in Andy Warhol’s Bad, Big Top Pee-wee and Crybaby. Her role as Oma the sad barfly in John Huston’s Fat City saw her nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and who could forget her as tough as nails lesbian, Solly Mosler, the den-mother to a group of transvestite prostitutes in the Angel movies? No one plays a tough, psychotic bitch better than Tyrell and I mean no one.

But if you want to see Susan Tyrrell really cut loose and at her most, well, Susan Tyrrellish, you have to see her in her greatest role, as jealous Queen Mona in Richard Elfman’s cult classic, Forbidden Zone. Here she is in her berserk performance of “Witches Egg,” a song she also wrote (I always put this on mixed CDs):

Sadly due to a rare blood clotting disease,Tyrrell had to have both of her legs amputated. She’s still acting, playing a fortune teller in Bob Dylan and Larry Charles’ surreal Armed and Dangerous and producing amusing primitivist paintings which you can see on her official website.

Susan Tyrrell.com

My So-Called Rotten Life by Paul Cullum

Hey, that’s cool! I had no idea she was a visual artist, as well!
My favorite Susan Tyrell moment is her role as the shut-in daugter-in-law in <i>Andy Warhol’s Bad</i>. Some classic dialog: “<i>I can only relate to smoking…”</i>
I also found her the only memorable moment in the horrible adaptation of <b>Charles Bukowski’s</b> <i>Tale of Ordinary Madness</i>. She plays a punky woman who the Buk character (played by Ben Gazzara!) stalks and (somewhat consensually) sexually assaults. Fun stuff.

I found her on myspace years ago and she’s really as charming and hilarious in text as you would expect her to be.

She will forever be the queen of my heart

...well, maybe a close tie with Marjorie Cameron

<3

Perhaps the closest Hollywood fiction ever got to reality was with Susan Tyrell’s incomparable creation for ‘Fat City.’ There was nothing before to equal it, and nothing since.