Susan Lanier (The Hills Have Eyes, Welcome Back Kotter)

Susan Lanier and I discuss MLB manager Hal Lanier; her song, "On the Way to Woodstock"; watching "The Miss America Pageant"; growing up in Dallas; being a DJ at 14; studying with Uta Hagen; acting in the film The Pickle Goes in the Middle; doing non-Union movies in NYC with Warhol and Putney Swope directed by Robert Downey, Sr.; going to LA and getting cast on Happy Days; not knowing the current stars; turning down an audition for SNL; Welcome Back Kotter; doing Night of the Iguana with Tennessee Williams; accidentally getting knocked out by Richard Chamberlain: Taryn Powers; Chloris Leachman; Over and Out; Pat Paulsen; Tony Orlando and Dawn Rainbow Hour; not liking doing con's; Henry Winkler; doing The Hills Have Eyes over agents' thoughts; the touring for the premiere; it being considered a terror classic; being cast and let go from Three's Company; the Facts of Life scale; being in the cast of Sha Na Na; Chuck Berry; moving into music; her cabaret act; an audition for a Brian DePalma movie gives her the singing bug; performs her late husband's composition Superstar and her own songs; Swamp Cabaret; getting into photography;