- published: 28 Jul 2008
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Susan Ellen Anton (born October 12, 1950) is an American actress and singer.
Anton attended Yucaipa High School in Yucaipa, California, and graduated in 1968. After high school, Anton attended San Bernardino Valley College. She first experienced fame by winning the nearby Miss Redlands and later the Miss California beauty contests in 1969 and tied as second runner-up in the 1970 Miss America Scholarship Pageant held September 6 that year.
By the mid-1970s, Anton developed a following for her Muriel Cigar commercials where she provocatively sang, "Let Muriel turn you on / That is my desire / Muriel lights a flame in me / Where there's Muriel smoke, there's fire". Later in the 1970s, Anton appeared approximately 30 times on Merv Griffin's TV show. She was frequently seen and heard in television, print and radio ads for the Perfect Sleeper mattress by Serta. In these ads, she announced her name and sang the company's jingle.
In 1978, ABC gave her and country singer Mel Tillis a summertime variety series, Mel and Susan Together, produced by the Osmond Brothers. The pairing of Anton and Tillis was an unlikely one: he was popular in country music circles but hardly a national household name while Susan was barely known at all. The show disappeared after four weeks; nevertheless, she was later chosen as one of Time magazine's "Most Promising Faces of 1979."