Background
Dey was born Susan Hallock Dey in Pekin, Illinois to Ruth Pyle (née Doremus) Dey, a nurse who died in 1961, when Susan was eight years old, and Robert Smith Dey, a newspaper editor for the New Rochelle, New York Standard-Star.
Dey was born Susan Hallock Dey in Pekin, Illinois to Ruth Pyle (née Doremus) Dey, a nurse who died in 1961, when Susan was eight years old, and Robert Smith Dey, a newspaper editor for the New Rochelle, New York Standard-Star.
She attended Columbus Elementary School in Thornwood, New York, later moving to Bedford, New York, where she graduated from Fox Lane High School.
Her more prominent parts came as elder daughter Laurie Partridge on the 1970s sitcom The Partridge Family, and as Grace Van Owen, a California assistant district attorney and later judge on the dramatic series L.A. Law from 1986-92. Dey was a model before starring as "Laurie Partridge" in the television series The Partridge Family from 1970–74. She returned to weekly network television in 1977 as the co-star of the short-lived situation comedy Loves Me, Loves Me Not.
Her first film role was as a passenger in the 1972 airline hijack movie Skyjacked starring Charlton Heston. Also in 1977, Dey starred opposite William Katt in a romance film, First Love, directed by Joan Darling. Dey co-starred with Albert Finney in a 1981 science-fiction film, Looker, written and directed by Michael Crichton.
She had a leading role in 1986's Echo Park as a struggling waitress/actress who takes a job as a stripper who delivers singing telegrams. She starred on L.A. Dey was also nominated in each of the following four years. She hosted a 1992 episode of Saturday Night Live.
Later that year, she co-starred in the Diane English/CBS sitcom Love & War with Jay Thomas. Although the show ran until 1995, Dey was replaced in 1993 by Annie Potts because producers reportly felt she had "no chemistry" with co-star Thomas. In 1993, she produced and starred in the ABC Movie of the Week Lies & Lullabies (later released on DVD as Sad Inheritance), where she played a pregnant cocaine addict.
Dey was mentioned in Shirley Jones' memoir as the only one who "consistently refused" to take part in Partridge Family TV reunions.
M. Bernie Sofronski.