Susan Douglas Rubeš
actress, producer (1925-2013)

Susan Douglas Rubeš (13 March 1925 – 23 January 2013) was an Austrian-born Canadian actress and producer. She was sometimes credited as Susan Douglas or Susan Rubes.
Life and career
Rubeš was born Zuzka Zenta Bursteinová in Vienna, Austria, the only child of Charlotte and Alfred Burstein. Her family was Jewish. When Zuzka was a child, her parents moved to a farm in Czechoslovakia, where they bred race horses. Her family took her to the theater or opera in Brno, and, on occasion, would visit Zuzka's maternal grandmother in Vienna, the manager of the Burgtheater. She began studying ballet at the age of eight. In 1939, Alfred and Charlotte moved to Paris to escape the German invasion, and a year later, Zuzka and her mother moved to the United States to escape the war in Europe, three months before the Germans invaded Paris. Emigration to the U.S. was allowed on the basis of annual quotas. Charlotte was allowed in the country on the basis of her birth in Italy, as Italy's quota had not been filled for that year.
The public source identifies “Susan Douglas Rubeš” as actress, producer (1925-2013). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Susan, Douglas and Rubeš.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11836993. VIAF identifies the subject as 107563793. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 2013 and 1939.
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This entry incorporates text from “Susan Douglas Rubeš” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.