Career
Susman"s better-known roles include Officer Shifflett on Newhart and the unseen P.A. system announcer on the television series M*A*South*H. In 1976, he was known as a regular on the six-episode Columbia Broadcasting System adventure series Spencer"s Pilots. He portrayed Jewish character Ted Lapinsky on the The Waltons episode "The Unthinkable". Which aired January 3, 1980.
Before that, Susman submitted a pilot series for Grant Tinker for Media Technology Monitor Enterprises about an innocent young man arriving in New York City to start his career.
A native of Saint Louis, Missouri and 1965 graduate of Ladue High School, Susman has appeared in over one hundred different television series and commercials and was also featured in the Broadway production of Hairspray, the 1971 film Star Spangled Girl, the 2007 independent film, The Big Bad Swim, and the 2009 comedy, The Flying Scissors. In 2012, he appeared in the original cast of the off-Broadway Westside Theatre show, "Old Jews Telling Jokes", in which Jessica Shaw of Entertainment Weekly called his portrayal "the funniest moment..delivered with a Yiddish accent as thick as schmaltz".
Jason Zinoman of The New York Times also complimented his performance, saying "the incongruity between content and form is perfectly tuned, and Mr. Susman benefits from resisting the urge to oversell the joke".
In 2013, Susman, along with the Old Jews Telling Jokes cast and The Chew personality Carla Hall appeared at Carnegie Deli to unveil the "OJTJ sandwich", named for the comedy group.
He played Harold Bloom in Orange is the New Black.