Zuzka Zenta was born in Vienna, Austria to Alfred and Charlotte Burstein, a Jewish couple. Her family moved to a ranch in central Bohemia, Czechoslovakia when she was young, where they would often attend the theater or opera in Brno. Zuzka's maternal grandmother was the manager of the Burgtheater in Vienna, where they would occasionally visit.
Zuzka began studying ballet at the age of eight, but her life took a dramatic turn when her parents moved to Paris in 1939 to escape the war in Europe. A year later, Zuzka and her mother moved to the United States, while her father stayed in London to work for the Czechoslovak government-in-exile.
Zuzka learned English by watching three movies a day and adopted the name Suzi Burstein. She attended George Washington High School in New York and graduated in 1943. After changing her name to Susan Douglas, she began a career in radio, television, theater, and film.
Susan Douglas made her film debut in 1947 with The Private Affairs of Bel Ami, and went on to appear in hundreds of television shows, including the soap opera The Guiding Light. She became pregnant three times during her appearance on the show, and the producers accommodated her by having her character sick and in an oxygen tent, using a wheelchair, and eventually killing her off.
In 1959, Susan Douglas moved to Toronto, Canada, where she began introducing plays to schools. She founded the Young People's Theater in 1965, with the goal of introducing children to the live theater experience. The theater was renamed the Susan Douglas Rubes Theater Center in 1977.
Susan Douglas served as associate editor of A Collection of Canadian plays, volume 4 in 1972, and remained artistic director of the center until 1979. She then moved to CBC Television, where she was the head of CBC Radio Drama from 1982-86 and president of the Family Channel from 1987-89.
Susan Douglas married Jan Rubes, a Czech-Canadian opera singer, in 1950, and they appeared together in the film Forbidden Journey. They had three children: Christopher, Jonathan, and Anthony. The couple remained married until Jan's death in 2009.
