Charla Sue Doherty (August 6, 1946 – May 29, 1988)[1] was an American film and television actress who appeared on the first season of the long-running soap opera Days of Our Lives.
[4] The contest, sponsored by Benny's radio program, awarded $1500 to Charles Doherty, then a law student at Case Western Reserve University.
[11] By her senior year (1962-1963) she was class treasurer and took afternoon courses at UCLA in world history and psychology through a cooperative program the two institutions had for high achieving HPS students.
Doherty's agent used the resulting publicity to push the story about her father winning the Jack Benny contest, which led to her appearing on that program nine months later in April 1964.
[24] Doherty's first known stage work came in January 1968, when a combined cast of eight professional and eight amateur actors performed Life with Father in Santa Barbara, California.
[25] The show was a project initiated by the local high school's drama teacher and students, who collected money for the insurance bond, and persuaded Actor's Equity to grant permission for pros to perform on the same stage with amateurs.
[25] Besides Doherty, the pros for the one week run included Leon Ames and Lurene Tuttle as the leads, while her then husband Malcolm Black was the director.
[25] Malcolm Black was also the director for Doherty's next stage work, an eight week run of A Midsummer Night's Dream, produced by the Inner City Repertory (ICR) company in Los Angeles.
[26] Doherty played Hermia, in a cast that included Kim Hamilton, Dana Elcar, Bonnie Bedelia, Mark Lenard, Don Pedro Colley, and Robert Ito.
[33] This obituary had several minor inaccuracies about Doherty's career, concerning her length of time on Days of Our Lives, the number of movies she made, and that she appeared on the Ben Casey TV series.