Susannah Carr

Susannah Carr was born in 1952 and lives in Western Australian as a famous news anchor for 7 News Perth.


Background

Susannah was born in the United Kingdom but her family move her to Western Australia when she was only 7 months old. She is granddaughter to Robert Carr who was a singer and a niece to Antony Carr who was a detective novelist. With family members that had such interesting professions, it was a matter of fate that Susannah would follow their footsteps.

Even though she was born in Europe, she considers herself a true Australian because all of her values and traditions are from being raised in Australia. She may not be a native of Australia but she got immersed enough in the country to call it her true home.

For her educational studies, she went to North Cottesloe Primary. She did very well in school and was considered to be a bright girl. Her teachers were impressed with her ability to convey her thoughts and ideas at such a young age. They didn’t have to worry about her path like they did with the other students. They knew that she was going to make something of herself because she already had so much drive and determination even before she became a young adult.

She got her bachelor’s degree from UWA and she qualified as an architectural draftsperson. Her specialty proved that she was an intelligent woman but her life would take a shift as she would end up doing something completely different from what she studied.

The First Step to Success

Susannah Carr started her career in news media with Perth’s ABC radio as an announcer. Two weeks after joining the station, Cyclone Tracy took place in Darwin when she was broadcasting on Christmas Day. It was a big and dangerous event for a new announcer to cover but Susannah was happy to take on the challenge.

She worked for radio and TV in Perth and she became the first female presenter for ABC News in Perth. After a successful run on radio, she was asked to join the TVW7 station in 1985 and she would end up become a major face of the Channel 7 News in Perth.

In 1986, she got the Logie Award for being the Most Popular Female in Western Australia. In the same year, Rick Ardon, her co-anchor also got a Logie Award for being the Most Popular Male in Western Australia. 

Susannah Carr started her broadcasting career presenting live television commentary, classical music concerts, and anchored election coverage along with the weather. She worked on different varied projects within the network such as Genevieve. She went into South Africa to report about the first election that involved all races. She was also among the western crew with cameras who went into Russia to capture coverage of the Faberge egg collection of the Kremlin. 

Susannah Carr was also involved into the crew that covered the funeral of Princess Diana. The passing of Princess Diana was global event and Carr was able to present the impact to the residents of her home country.

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When asked about her life as a TV presenter, Susannah said that she had to adapt a new voice for presenting on TV. When she was on the radio, she already had a style of doing things but she didn’t have to show her face. She took liberties and tried everything out. It was a good time for her to practice. When she got on camera, she made sure that she wouldn’t mess up by practicing as much as she could.

Celebrating a Long Broadcasting Career

Susannah has been a popular news presenter since 1985. She is most known for being a co-anchor for Seven News in Perth together with Rick Ardon.

In 2015, they celebrated 3 decades for being the famous co-anchors of 7 News Perth.  The duo surpassed the record set by former co-anchors of WNBC Sue Simmons and Chuck Scarborough who had a partnership of 32 years. It was a great achievement for the two because it symbolized a few things. Individually, it meant that they were good enough at their job for their longevity to be a feature of their broadcasting. Collectively, it meant that they had such good chemistry when they appeared on television that their producers never thought of breaking them up.

It is really hard to stay on the same team in the world of news broadcasting because sometimes the job is a revolving door. When the ratings go down, the producers need to find someone to blame. Sometimes the blame will fall on one of the co anchors for not being engaging enough or for making too many mistakes. The team of Susannah and Rick never gave their producers a chance to break time up. Time and time again, they rose to the challenge and exceeded expectations whenever their producers needed to count on them.

She said that for all the years she has worked with Rick Arden, they had only one misunderstanding but they understand each other like a married couple.

Personal Life

She has talked about her husband Chris at only a minimum level, it is not clear if she ever got married before him or if she ever got a divorce before her current marriage because she likes to keep her personal life details very private. 

She is very fit for her age even without any crazy diet programs. She likes to swim laps in Claremont pool to keep herself active and healthy. She walks her dog Poppy and she likes to cook.

Susannah Carr and her husband, Chris also like to travel and they love to go to many movies.  She says that she keeps her young looks by being happy and exercising regularly. Even though she doesn’t have much time to herself because of the requirements and busy schedule of her job, she is stable able to find small pockets of time where she can be good to herself and her body. She stays away from bad food which can be a problem for her age.

Last Modified: Apr 8, 2020


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