If you know of the wonderful Susan Buckner, you know her because of her role as Patty Simcox in the movie Grease and for appearances on a wide variety of TV shows and a few films in the seventies. I know her as that lovely lady I met on a TV show I wrote in 1978. She was brimming with talent and beauty and she could sing and act…and I was one of her many friends who was stunned when one day, she decided to give that up and opt instead for a marriage and a family. We kept in touch and she never seemed to have regretted that decision.
I took the above photo of her in my old apartment around '79. This was when she was still acting and wherever we went, she somehow got recognized as the girl in Grease, even though (as you can see) she looked nothing like the character in real life. Thirty-some-odd years later, she was in town, we got together and I took her to the Magic Castle for an evening. Among the many bars at the Castle, there's one that is sometimes — and don't ask me why — referred to as "The Golddiggers Bar," referencing the troupe of young ladies who used to sing n' dance in that group on The Dean Martin Show.
Susan had been one of the Golddiggers. Actually, she was a lot of different things. She had been one of the Krofftettes, the swim/dance troupe that did water ballet on Sid & Marty Krofft's Brady Bunch Variety Hour. She was Miss Washington in whatever beauty pageant it was that crowned a Miss Washington at the time. She was in other groups. That night at the Castle, she wanted to visit the Golddiggers Bar because…well, just because. I escorted her there, we ordered non-alcoholic beverages and the bartender said to her, "Hey, you were the girl with the glasses in Grease, weren't you?" It was the most amazing feat I ever saw at the Castle.
She was a lot more than any of her credits. She was truly charming and funny and lovely and I don't have anything else to say here right now. I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that she's gone. If there's an Afterlife, I'm sure someone there is asking her if she was the girl in Grease.