I happen to work in the Television Movie industry and was frequently at events with Susan and her husband, Bernie Safronsky (a competitor of mine and one of the more prolific telefilm suppliers in the 80s and 90s). Susan’s agent was also a close friend. To say that “her career never took off” couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s laughably wrong. Susan chose to pull away from acting after grabbing the brass ring of our business. She was a star in not one but TWO hit series (PARTRIDGE FAMILY / LA LAW). In 1990, the number of actors who had the incredible good fortune of working on two hit series was tiny. All of them were household names (e.g. Carroll O’Connor, Bill Bixby, Mary Tyler Moore).
In the heyday of the movie-for-television business (70s/80s/90s), there were only a handful of actresses that could get your movie “greenlit” (ordered into production by the network). As a supplier myself, we would covet relationships with these actresses because they were the difference between making a movie or having a script sit on a shelf. Susan Dey was one of those stars. Networks were constantly trying to get her to star in their films (as were we, the Producers). I made many offers to Ms. Dey, on many movies, all of which she turned down.
Susan chose to be a mother, wife, activist, philanthropist – and chose not to work for years at a time. She had the luxury of having the financial security to not have to work.
Dennis Franz walked away from acting after NYPD BLUE ended in 2005. Nobody ever says his “career never took off” because he chose not to act again. Perhaps if Ms. Dey had played a cop instead of a lawyer nobody would write things like this about her…