Fat City came soon after, as did supporting roles in mainstream films such as Jan Troell's Zandy's Bride (1974), as a buxom, wanton Latina with whom married Gene Hackman dallies. These parts typecast Tyrrell, leaving her seldom able to escape. Her debut in movies came that year in the Henry Hathaway western Shoot Out as a plucky saloon girl (ie prostitute) taken hostage and rescued by a former bank robber, Gregory Peck. In 1971 she began to get roles in television, first as an alcoholic mother in an episode of Bonanza. She started acting as a teenager in summer stock and regional theatre before moving to New York. Her mother, Gillian, had served in the US diplomatic corps in China and the Philippines, and her father, John, who worked for the William Morris Agency, was an agent for stars such as Loretta Young and Carole Lombard. She was born Susan Jillian Creamer in San Francisco. Tyrrell herself, who played as many tough cookies as sodden losers, was a vigorously optimistic person, despite the ups and downs of her life and career. Huston stated that the melancholy film was "about the spiritual process of the defeated and the futility and indestructibility of hope". Oma falls hopelessly in love with a no-hoper boxer, played by Stacy Keach. One of the broken people she portrayed so vividly was Oma, the pathetic, drunken barfly in John Huston's Fat City (1972), for which she was nominated for an Oscar.
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