Eight is Enough star broke and living in a broken down trailer

You'd think she would have made plenty of money off that show.

http%3A//radaronline.com/exclusives/2013/01/susan-richardson-eight-is-enough-broke-ill/



• Didn't Lani O'Grady die in a trailer? I'm sure the cast made very little off that show. It was never very successful in syndication and the DVDs are just now trickling out via Warner On-Demand. Susan Richardson has been nuts for years. Remember when she claimed she was sold into white slavery after showing up to film some movie in another country? Very adamant it happened but offered no explanations of how she escaped.

• Drugs are a bad thing, kids. Doesn't matter if they're off the streets or prescription. Let that be a lesson to you.

  LLohan

• "A digestive disorder tht caused her to lose her teeth"? Since when is meth indigestible?

• I love the headline: "Eight Is Enough Star Susan Richardson’s Sad Story- She’s Broke, Toothless & Desperately Ill" Looking at that photo of her trailer, they should have added "a lousy housekeeper."

• so is the cane thing a hint?

• She and Erin Moran could move in together, this could work out well for both of them.

  Bar%20Bush

• Why can't Dick or Betty help her out? They're pretty well off.

• It is now thought that hoarders are those that possess Neanderthal ancestry. The Neanderthals were forced to basically hibernate in caves for months at a time because they had lived through the ice age. Red hair is a clear indicator of Neanderthal heritage. Poor Susan is just living out her Neanderthal genetics, probably not knowing why she does what she does.

• If Dianne Kay needs help, she can call anytime. I want nothing to do with the rest of you.

  Dame%20Betty%20Lynn

• Never could stand her or her gigantic forehead.

• Didn't Susan Richardson or one of the 8 is Enough girls go to high schools in the late 70s or early 80s and try to scare kids straight about the horrors of drugs? I just seem to remember this occurring back then at my sister's high school.

• Didn't she claim she was abducted by a UFO?

  Fallon

• ^ See R1 -- she claimed she went to South Korea to film a movie and was held there against her will.

• Looks like the aliens who abducted her have been living in the trailer with her. Yikes!

  Willie%20Aames

• She couldn't possibly have been paid very much. I'm guessing $3k per episode would be on the high side, with probably only the tiniest of residuals for reruns ($100 for each airing?). A great income for her at the time, certainly, but nowhere near enough to fund retirement at age 25 or however old she was when the show ended. On top of that, she is quite clearly mentally ill, and has been for sometime. In some cases (ie several of her eight is enough siblings), they cause their own problems, but in susan's case, the root problem seems to be mental illness. sad. by the way, when i was kid watching the show (around 5 or 6 years old), i was always confused by the lani o'grady and betty buckley characters. they looked so much alike, and i couldn't understand why sometimes she was treated like a sister and other times like a mother.

• Why didn't they take their money and go to college? Get a degree and a job. Paul from Wonder Years is a lawyer and Winnie writes sexy math books.

• I'm the pretty one, as Dick van Patten said, so I don't have these problems.

  Dianne%20Kay

• [quote]Why can't Dick or Betty help her out? They're pretty well off. Why would they? They appeared with her on a TV show with her nearly 40 years ago; they're not her actual parents.

• Lately, it seems to get a job, you have to have a degree AND a hit show on your resume.

• Joan Prather, who played Grant Goodeve's wife, is a Tea Party member.

  http://www.meetup.com/santa-monica-tea-party/members/9316575/

  Sandra Sue Abbott

• I realize she must have other problems, but I don't really understand why so many actors seem to think being in a TV show or a few movies entitles them to never do anything else, or leaves them helpless, when the work dries up. Can't they get jobs to get by like regular people?

• IMDB tells me Ms. Prather is a Tea Party member, a Scientologist and a hit-and-run felon. The trifecta!

• Susan had the best career post EIE. She was a reoccurring character on One Day At A Time.

• I thought Kate divorced that Asian dude... where are the 8 kids now?

• I do remember when she had her daughter, she was constantly in the paper, showing up to events with her daughter. She also admitted to having a cocaine problem. Allegedly the EIE producers wanted her to lose her pregnancy weight.

• That's a fire hazard if I ever saw one.

  Danny%20Blake

• [quote]"Richardson is carrying on regardless, trying to scrape by on a small pension and making canes for military veterans out of birch branches she collects in the woods." That, along with its appearing in the National Enquirer, convinces me this must be a bad joke.

• I remember when she "guest starred" on an episode of Chips and playe a "New Wave" singer with Pink hair....its a pretty hilarious episode that ends with Erik Estrada singing.

• [quote] She couldn't possibly have been paid very much. I'm guessing $3k per episode would be on the high side, with probably only the tiniest of residuals for reruns ($100 for each airing?). A great income for her at the time, certainly, but nowhere near enough to fund retirement at age 25 Thanks for setting OP straight. I am tired of idiots thinking that someone who was a supporting actor on a hit show thirty years ago are gazillionaires.

• After seeing that pic of her trailer, I'm sure there's an episode of "Hoarders" in her future. That should bring in a few bucks.

• What is Radar Online's obsession with former TV stars from decades ago now living in trailers? Someone on DL also linked to one of their stories about Erin Moran now living in a trailer a few months ago.

• I agree there's no way she could retire on her Eight earnings but r15 just says they don't pay much for residuals. The real issue is the old contracts only paid for 6 repeats of an episode. 6 repeats, remember it, that's what the old contracts always stipulated. It didn't change until some point in the 80s. The new contracts let tv stars get paid for every repeat of syndicated airings, so they can live quite comfortably on residuals if their show is a hit in syndication. But the old contracts still apply for stars of really old shows.

• I was going to say just that, R29. Most Americans assume that anyone whoever appeared on TV or in a film is "set for life" (an actual quote on DL) and rolling in piles of dollar bills. Most actors in SAG are not making a living wage through acting.

• Best picture of Susan. SFW not for sanity.

  http://www.gildedserpent.com/art52/graphics52/CarlNBBB/SusanRichardson.jpg

• They are only getting pennies per repeat. Hardly rolling in the dough

• Damn... I was hoping it was Betty in the trailer.

• I'm more shocked when I hear about a '70s TV star who *isn't* broke, toothless and living in a trailer.

• Joan Prather also introduced John Travolta into Scientology after they co-starred in a movie. This was prior to Eight is Enough and Welcome Back, Kotter,.

• Wow, she has a trailer?

  Darfur%20orphan

• I met her at the Emmy Awards one year--it was 81 or 82, the year the writers went on strike; most of the younger cast members of EIE were there. Susan was notable among them for being very nice and very approachable. The impression I had was that she was thrilled to be part of a successful series; she seemed really wide-eyed and genuine, which may be one of the reasons she was cast. I remember reading that she had come from a strictly religious family in PA. Her background may have even been Mennonite or Amish, I can't recall. Also, somewhat related: People mag wrote an article about the cast that focused on the envy of some them after Diane Kay landed a starring role in "1942." The movie was expected to be huge--and Diane was tapped to be the Next Big Thing because of it. But it flopped and Diane's career, like most of the others' (Buckley is the exception) seemed to disappear. Anyway, Susan has had some tough breaks over the years; I hope thngs get better for her.

  Anonymous

• I'm sorry miss,u but with all due respect I've got problems of my own.

  Mariah%20Carey

• Dianne Kay seemed to be the one and only who had a head on her shoulders

• I saw the title of this thread and thought it was about Betty Lynn! Then I realized she's only PLAYING a bag lady in "Dear World" in London...

  The%20Ghost%20of%20Diana%20Hyland%20Travolta

• Hilarious R 14 :)

• Even before clicking on the article I knew this thread had Susan Richardson written all over it.

  Elizabeth%2C%20the%20pretty%20Bradford

• Another different account via Huff Post: 'Eight Is Enough' star Susan Richardson in 1979. Former "Eight Is Enough" star Susan Richardson is reportedly broke, living in a trailer and suffering from "devastating" health problems. The 60-year-old spoke with the National Enquirer, telling the magazine that she doesn't want to complain too much, but she admits she has her fair share of problems. The former actress was cast to play the fourth oldest child on "Eight Is Enough" back in 1977 and played the role of Susan Bradford for five seasons. Her career stalled once the series ended, and her last credit is the 1989 TV movie "An Eight Is Enough Wedding." Today, Richardson is wracked with medical problems, living with diabetes and having suffered several strokes. She has a digestive problem that she said have caused her to lose all of her teeth, and her weight has plummeted to a mere 60 pounds. "I had a series of mini-strokes. Then I discovered I had a rare disorder that made my esophagus go spastic," she told the magazine (via Hollywood.com) Financial problems soon followed her ailing health, and now Richardson lives in a "rotting trailer" in Wagontown, Pa., that she can't even afford to heat. "There’s always something wrong with it. I desperately need a new trailer but I can’t afford it," she said. Richardson isn't the only sitcom star to have fallen on hard times. Like Richardson, former "Happy Days" star Erin Moran is also broke and living like a recluse in Indiana, after being evicted from her home and a trailer park. The former actress has found herself in nothing but trouble, even getting in a drunken brawl with her 72-year-old mother-in-law last October. CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that the TV movie "An Eight Is Enough Wedding" was made in 1998, it was made in 1989.

  Mary, Save A Christian, Foundation

• You would think that with all the money she made on a hit show, plus residuals, she could afford something better than a trailer.

• "CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that the TV movie "An Eight Is Enough Wedding" was made in 1998..." I would have taped that.

• That show would have been so much better if it had referenced real life Thomas Braden's experience in the CIA and his wife's relationships in their open marriage.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Braden

• [quote]You would think that with all the money she made on a hit show, plus residuals, she could afford something better than a trailer. And you would think that someone could read all the posts in a fairly short thread before mentioning something that has already been brought up at least twice before they commented on the same topic.

• Well R21, the same could be said for professional athletes. Those guys all expect to retire at 30. Then bitch about how they blew thew all their cash on strippers. And how they cant work past that age. They can work, just not as pro athletes, that never seems to cross their mind. That is why they say they need to be highly paid millions of dollars just to hit a ball with a stick.

• R51, a great deal of those highly paid athletes become doormats for their families - supporting a full staff, financing business ventures, and trusting idiots with their money. I imagine it's the same for semi-successful actors.

• Maybe her medical problems caused her to go broke. She lives in the US after all.

• And R52, some of them spend their money training pit bulls to be killers and betting money on them on their own property. Athletes are also cheaper then most Actors. Remember 911 and quite a few actors gave a million dollars each. I think I saw another one with pro athletes and the who team only donated like 100,000. And everyone on the team was a multimillionaire. They only did it to look like they cared.