Crow Sister, amen to your post about why we're discussing Susan's appearance - more than we'd be focusing on the appearance of an equally ordinary-looking man. Even in the days of radio the women were often expected to be more glamourous than the men, but, yes, there were very notable exceptions: Kate Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson, etc.   
But Piers Plowman's reply to my example -- "Walter Mathau can be paired with Sophia Loren as a romantic couple, for instance, but not Bea Arthur with Paul Newman." -- makes my point. Piers said "Oh, I thought Bea Arthur was a very attractive and impressive-looking woman. "
She was (maybe still is), but Bea in her 40s or 50s would not have been cast as a romantic lead opposite a man of the same age who was considered a sex symbol comparable to Sophia Loren, while the movie industry thinks nothing of pairing Jack Nicholson with beautiful 30-something women.    That double standard is alive and well.