Susan
Ward
When
Susan Ward was just a toddler, she followed the local
veterinarian on his rounds and brought every stray animal she found
to the private menagerie she and her parents called home. As a teenager,
she had every intention of becoming a vet, until a modeling agent
spotted her in a mall at the age of 13. Susan Ward
and her mom were convinced to travel to New York to investigate
modeling opportunities. Susan Ward saw it as the
perfect way to finance her veterinary training and therefore was
immediately enthused. Little did she know that the weeklong mother/daughter
adventure in the Big Apple would lead to a contract with the prestigious
Ford modeling agency.
"What just happened here?" Her mother asked as they left
the agency, and then cried all the way back to their hometown of
Monroe, La., over her daughter's good fortune. Over the next several
years, Susan Ward traveled back and forth between
New York and Monroe as she built a solid modeling career and subsequently
completed high school and several college courses.
After appearing in numerous public service announcements for the
Northeast Louisiana Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association, she began
taking acting lessons and soon thereafter embarked on a full-fledged
acting career. She captured a small role on the popular daytime
drama "All My Children" and a year later returned to the
show as a recurring player. In June of 1995, she auditioned for
a part on the NBC prime-time series from Aaron Spelling, "Malibu
Shores." More than six months later, she was asked to fly to
Los Angeles to test for the role. "I had completely forgotten
about it," Susan Ward recalls. It was at the
test that she was first introduced to Aaron Spelling, a meeting
which she describes as "very overwhelming": "I was
very nervous at first, but he is one of the nicest men I've ever
met and put me totally at ease." Needless to say, she got the
role.
Susan Ward feels a kinship to her "Sunset
Beach" character, Meg, who leaves her longtime boyfriend at
the altar in Kansas and travels across the country in search of
a man she's never met: "She follows her heart -- she wants
to find out what the world has to offer. Finding this man is the
first thing she has ever been passionate about."
Susan Ward is single and lives in Los Angeles.
As a child, she raced the BMX bicycle circuit in Louisiana but now
settles for a more relaxing mode of transportation: rollerblading.
She still has a love for animals and the outdoors but also enjoys
the company of a good book, especially classics and murder mysteries.
Her birthday is April 15.
