Howard and Ginger...You have both covered, well, the fact that there was a lot more for Susan ahead of her, IF...she wanted it..and it seemed, at the time of both tv films, she WAS ready and excited about the tv series
situations.

"HEAT OF ANGER" was really dropped, after James Stacy's
horrible accident...BUT...the critics and viewers were all excited that she might do the "Maggie Cole" series.
That, of course, was cut short...because of the cancer that took her life later on.

It is also interesting that BARBARA STANWYCK was the one
who 'suggested' that they get Susan, to replace her on the HEAT OF ANGER tv-film.

WOULD SHE HAVE GONE ON WITH MORE LIVE THEATER?? I seriously doubt it! I feel Susan was pushed in to doing that show, by her friends (the couple that picked her up after the Joey Bishop Show, that night)
I was with them, when they left the studio that night and it is the same couple who were her 'friends' that had pushed so much on the MAME thing...telling her she would have a big chance in getting the movie role, IF..she did the Vegas production.

I saw Susan do MAME in Vegas..and being a professional actor myself, it is no easy task to do what she was doing each night on that stage. It was obvious that she was not given proper training on saving her voice for such a demanding role. I feel the whole situation would NOT be something Susan would have liked to tackle again. She was fine in the role, but I could also tell she was giving 'her all' and must be totally exhausted after each one of those shows.

You're probably all correct. She was reestablishing her career, in television, and there wouldn't be any reason to go back on stage again.

Maybe one of the reasons I wondered about the possibility of Susan trying the stage again was because of another famous redhead, Lucille Ball:

In 1960-61 she appeared in the now-infamous "Wildcat." In April 1961 she collapsed onstage, which meant the play needed to close; because she was never vocally trained for a stage musical she forever after spoke with that raspy foghorn voice, her vocal cords permanently damaged. In short, she thought "Wildcat" nearly killed her.

Still, by the early 1980's she was toying with the idea of trying the stage again. She thought she would have been perfect to play Tallulah Bankhead; another possibility was the part of Apple Annie in a stage production of "Pocketful of Miracles."

Of course, by the early 80's Lucy's TV career was over, her favorite and most reliable co-star Vivian Vance dead by now, a loss from which she never really recuperated. The film version of Mame had been a notorious flop back in 1974, which meant, for her, the movies were no longer a possibility since she could no longer be photographed the way she wanted. She was bored out of her mind, furiously playing backgammon with whomever was willing to play with her to ease the frustration and pain of no longer having the audience she was accustomed to.

So--what the hell---why not try the stage again?

Of course, this was not Susan Hayward's issue. Even though she was now in her mid-fifties she had retained her looks, maturing gracefully and never needing the photographic and near-Hurculean cosmetic artistry Lucy had required at the same age. From everything I have read, Susan was not pleased with what had become of the movie industry by the early 1970's and was not particularly interested in getting back into it full time, although her options probably would have been limited because of her age. And TV was, in essance, a whole new frontier for her since she had very little experience in it. So there would have been no reason to try the stage again, at least anytime soon.

And if she ever DID try the stage again hopefully she would have gotten the vocal training this time! How lucky you are, Errol, to have gotten to see her in Mame and tell us about it!