Susan Bluestein (born May 27, 1946) is an American

casting director In the performing arts industry such as theatre, film, or television, casting, or a casting call, is a pre-production process for selecting a certain type of actor, dancer, singer, or extra to land the role of a character in a script, screenp ...

and the widow of actor Brad Davis.

Biography

Born in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

and raised in

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

, New York, Bluestein has spent much of her career casting television movies, including '' The People vs. Jean Harris'', '' A Piano for Mrs. Cimino'', '' Casualties of Love: The "Long Island Lolita" Story'', and ''

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All ''Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All'' is a 1989 first novel by Allan GurganusReed, Susan and Hutchings, Davi"He's 42, She's 99—Together They Make the South Rise Again"''People Magazine'', September 18, 1989 which was on the ''New Yo ...

''. She cast multiple episodes of the series ''

Punky Brewster ''Punky Brewster'' is an American Situation comedy, sitcom television series about a young girl (Soleil Moon Frye) being raised by a foster parent (George Gaynes) in Chicago. The show ran on NBC from September 16, 1984, to March 9, 1986, and ag ...

'', '' Providence'' and '' JAG'' and has cast every episode of ''

NCIS NCIS or N.C.I.S. may refer to: Law enforcement * National Criminal Intelligence Service, the predecessor to the Serious Organised Crime Agency of the United Kingdom * Naval Criminal Investigative Service, a United States law enforcement and intelli ...

'' and '' NCIS: Los Angeles'' since their premieres. Bluestein's casting credits for feature films include ''

Crimes of the Heart ''Crimes of the Heart'' is a play by American playwright Beth Henley. It is set in Hazlehurst, Mississippi in the mid-20th century. The play won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. In 1986, th ...

'', '' Who's Harry Crumb?'', and '' Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey''. Her other projects include the 2008 BBC/HBO docudrama ''

House of Saddam ''House of Saddam'' is a 2008 British docudrama television miniseries that charted the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein. A co-production between BBC Television and HBO Films, the series was first broadcast on BBC Two (in the United Kingdom) in f ...

'' and '' Dehli-6''.

Awards

In 1995, Bluestein won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Casting for her work on ''

NYPD Blue ''NYPD Blue'' is an American police procedural television series set in New York City, exploring the struggles of the fictional 15th Precinct detective squad in Manhattan. Each episode typically intertwines several plots involving an ensemble ca ...

''. In 2014, ''NCIS'' star

Pauley Perrette Pauley Perrette (born March 27, 1969) is an American retired actress and singer. She played Abby Sciuto in the television series ''NCIS (TV series), NCIS'' from 2003 to 2018. Early life Perrette was born in New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, ...

presented Bluestein and her casting partner, Jason Kennedy, the Media Access Casting Society of America Award for their work promoting awareness of the disability experience, accessibility for people with disabilities, and the accurate depiction of characters with disabilities.

Family

Bluestein and Davis were married in 1976 and had one child, actor Alex Blue Davis, who is a

transgender man A trans man or transgender man is a man who was assigned female at birth. Trans men have a male gender identity, and many trans men undergo medical and social transition to alter their appearance in a way that aligns with their gender identit ...

. In 1985, Davis was diagnosed

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of '' Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the im ...

-positive, a condition he and Bluestein kept secret until just before his death in 1991, by

assisted suicide Assisted suicide, sometimes restricted to the context of physician-assisted suicide (PAS), is the process by which a person, with the help of others, takes actions to end their life. Once it is determined that the person's situation qualifie ...

. Bluestein co-authored a biographical memoir in 1997.

Casting filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bluestein, Susan 1946 births Living people American health activists American casting directors American women casting directors American HIV/AIDS activists People from Queens, New York Activists from New York (state)