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From Hollywood to Hartford School of Communication’s Susan Cardillo shares compelling past with students University of Hartford Assistant Professor of Communication Susan Cardillo had just started working as a production assistant on the set of the Hollywood movie A Month of Sundays, starring Rod Steiger, in 2001. “I’m standing next to the production manager and the executive producer walks up to him and punches him in the face. He says, ‘get off my set, you’re fired.’ Then he turns to me and says, ‘you’re the new production manager.’” Having no experience, Cardillo later found out her “promotion” was due to the fact the production manager was having an affair with the executive producer’s wife. A self-proclaimed “Jersey Girl,” Cardillo went to the University of Arizona on a baton twirling scholarship, majoring in theatre and television production. After graduation, she was looking for acting jobs in New York City when she saw a job posting for a flight attendant. After working for five years in
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the airline industry, Cardillo took a corporate buyout that included free travel anywhere in the world for the next five years. From New Jersey to Arizona: Cardillo That’s when she attended the University of Arizona on a baton twirling scholarship to study theatre decided to move to and television production. Los Angeles. She did sitcom work in the mid-to-late 80s, playing a gym teacher on a TV pilot called (appropriately) Faculty, and appearing on the show Down the Shore. Because acting wasn’t steady work, Cardillo waitressed at a restaurant across from Universal Studios. Among her customers was a film crew who invited her to join their team as a production assistant on A Month of Sundays. Cardillo worked out of her tiny L.A. apartment and a little office off Laurel Canyon Boulevard securing contracts and scouting locations. “It was a great way to learn, but there was
