Susan Harris

Who is Susan Harris?

Susan Harris is an American television comedy writer and producer.

Harris created numerous TV series: Soap, Benson, It Takes Two, The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, Nurses, Good & Evil, The Golden Palace and The Secret Lives of Men. She also wrote or co-wrote all of the episodes of Soap and appeared on two episodes of that show as a hooker named Babette. Her most successful show was The Golden Girls. Harris married television producer Paul Junger Witt on September 18, 1983; he co-produced all the shows she created. She was married from 1965 to 1969 to actor Berkeley Harris.

The first script Harris sold was Then Came Bronson. She then wrote for Love, American Style, All in the Family, The Partridge Family and the TV adaptation of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park. Her abortion episode for the Bea Arthur-starring series Maude in the 1970s won Harris the Humanitas Prize. She would later work with Arthur again in the 1980s when Arthur took one of the lead roles in The Golden Girls.

Harris has chronic fatigue syndrome, which affected her ability to participate in the production of The Golden Girls. In an episode of that show entitled "Sick and Tired", Harris wrote some of her struggles into the storyline where Arthur's character Dorothy was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.