Suzanne Rogers — A Biography
Born to perform – originally, dance — Suzanne Cecelia Crumpler changed her name professionally to Suzanne Rogers, inspired by the likes of the late Ginger Rogers.
The Colonial Heights, Virginia native first expressed an interest in hoofing as a child and began taking lessons at age two. When she was 17, she relocated to New York, where she landed a job as a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall, a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that she was the then youngest performer to take to the hallowed stage. Rogers also began performing in Broadway musicals, Coco, Hallelujah Boy, and Follies chief among them.
In 1973, Rogers headed to California and began studying at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. A few months later, she auditioned for and won the role of Maggie on Days of our Lives when then-executive producer Betty Corday deemed her perfect for the part. She would go on to win a Daytime Emmy Award in 1979 for Outstanding Supporting Actress, the inaugural year of the category. The material that won her the accolade? A truncated battle with demon booze. “The audience at the time wasn’t thrilled about it, so they cut it short,” Rogers detailed to Soap Opera Digest.
Other TV credits include Love, American Style, Quincy M.E., Little House on the Prairie, Knight Rider, and the TV movie Never Say Never: The Deidre Hall Story.
The actress was forced to leave the soap briefly in 1984, upon being diagnosed with myasthenia gravis. She returned a year later, at which point her character was diagnosed with the same illness, a story turn Rogers suggested. The insidious autoimmune disease went into remission in 1995 but flared up again when yet another medical malady nearly felled her in 2020.
Explained Rogers some eleven months after the harrowing ordeal, ” It was one of those freaky accidents of swallowing a pill and it not going down…I remembered I hadn’t taken one of my horse pills, so I took the pill and I guess I didn’t drink enough water and I thought, “Gosh, that didn’t go down.” So I drank some more water. Well then it wasn’t going up or down and I got to a point where I thought, “I’m not breathing really well here.” And so panic kind of set in…I called 911…and in five minutes they were here. I don’t know why the EMTs didn’t try a Heimlich maneuver but they just put me on a gurney and said, “What hospital?” and put an oxygen thing on my nose and I don’t remember a whole lot beyond that.”
Rogers lives in Studio City, California.
More Facts About Suzanne Rogers
- Auditioned for the role of Maggie on Friday the 13th.
- The first scene she filmed was with John Clarke, who played Mickey.
- In preparation for Maggie’s decent into alcoholism, Rogers did more than simple research. “I went to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and I sat there and I listened. It was hard. It’s squeamish. You have such empathy for the people who are alcoholics, and so you want to do them justice. But you know it’s going to take a toll on you, and that’s basically what it did. I couldn’t let it drop.”
- Her favorite storyline over the years was the so called “Red Shoes Story.” “Those shoes gave her the hope that someday she’d walk on her own again,” Rogers told TVInsider. “After Maggie had her operation, she wasn’t sure if Mickey would leave her or not. Seeing the shoes made her realize that he wanted her to get well. He promised to take her out dancing in her red shoes. After Mickey gave them to her, Maggie realized he might not leave her.”
- Rogers counts co-stars Bill Hayes and his wife, Susan Seaforth Hayes, as two of her closest friends. “I call [them] every Sunday to talk,” enthused the actress to SOD. They had seen Follies at the Shubert Theatre. That was the musical I was in that brought me out to California. Bill said, ‘I know who you are. I saw Follies.’ That opened the door to us knowing each other on a different level other than the show.”
- She is the longest-running cast member on Days of our Lives. In recognition of 50 years since her debut, a special episode was crafted (read a synopsis here) and aired on August 18, 2023.
- Is dyslexic.
- Portrayed herself in the TV movie, Never Say Never: The Deidre Hall Story in 1995.
