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Susan Oliver was born Charlotte Gercke, the daughter of journalist George Gercke and astrology practitioner Ruth Hale Oliver, in New York City in 1932. Her parents divorced when she was still a child. In June 1949, Oliver joined her mother in Southern California, where Ruth Hale Oliver was in the process of becoming a well-known Hollywood astrologer. Oliver made a decision to embark upon a career as an actress and chose the stage name Susan Oliver.

By September 1949, using her new name, Oliver returned to the East Coast to begin drama studies at Swarthmore College, followed by professional training at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. After working in summer stock, regional theater and in unbilled bits in daytime and primetime TV shows and commercials, she made her first major television appearance playing a supporting role in the July 31, 1955 episode of the live drama series Goodyear TV Playhouse, and quickly progressed to leading parts in other shows.

In 1957, Oliver did numerous TV shows and a starring role in a movie. She began the year with an important ingenue part, as the daughter of an 18th century Manhattan family, in her first Broadway play, Small War on Murray Hill, a Robert E. Sherwood comedy.

The play`s short run was immediately followed by larger roles in live TV plays on Kaiser Aluminum Hour, The United States Steel Hour and Matinee Theater. Oliver then went to Hollywood, where she appeared in the November 14, 1957 episode of Climax!, one of the few live drama series based on the West Coast, as well as in a number of filmed shows, including the October 30, 1957 Wagon Train and the title role of "Country Cousin," an installment of Father Knows Best broadcast on March 5, 1958.

In July, 1957, Oliver was chosen for the title role in her first motion picture, The Green-Eyed Blonde, a low-budget independent melodrama released by Warner Brothers in December on the bottom half of a double bill.[2] It is the only motion picture on which Oliver received top billing.

At the close of the year, Oliver returned to New York, appearing in Robert Alan Aurthur`s "The Thundering Wave," the December 12, 1957 broadcast of the prestigious live drama series Playhouse 90. Her performance in the John Frankenheimer-directed teleplay was well-received and she was invited to Playhouse 90 two more times, March 26, 1959 and January 21, 1960.

As the next year began, Oliver continued to be a part of the Golden Age of TV Drama, acting in the February 26, 1958 episode of Kraft Television Theatre and "The Woman Who Turned to Salt", the June 16, 1958 installment of Suspicion, an hour-long suspense anthology series produced by Alfred Hitchcock. Oliver`s entry, directed by Robert Stevens, also starred Michael Rennie along with Hitchcock`s daughter, Patricia.

Oliver spent the remainder of her career in Hollywood, going on to play in more than 100 television shows, five made-for-TV movies, as well as 12 theatrical features. She appeared in three more episodes of Wagon Train, four episodes of The Virginian, three episodes each of Adventures in Paradise, Route 66 and Dr. Kildare as well as "Never Wave Goodbye," a critically praised October 8 – October 15, 1963 two-part episode of The Fugitive. On April 12, 1961 she appeared in an episode of The Naked City, "A Memory of Crying."

She was fourth-billed in her second theatrical feature, 1959`s The Gene Krupa Story. Her next movie was the 1960 Elizabe

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