American actress. She started modeling at 15 after going along with her model-sister to a photo shoot. She moved into the TV series sitcom “The Partridge Family” as the vested older daughter 1970-74. After the series, she began playing in TV movies with more substance and sex, gaining good reviews, and reached a peak playing an attorney in the TV series “L.A. Law” 1987-91. In 1992, her attempt at comedy fell flat in the series “Love and War” that lasted one season.
The daughter of a newspaper journalist, she was three months old when the family relocated to New York. At eight, her mom died from pneumonia, leaving behind four kids. At 15, her step mom, a former dancer, sent her picture to a modeling agency where her wholesome good looks caused a stir. By the time she was 16, her picture had been on the covers of Glamour, Bride’s and Seventeen magazines. The following year she flew to Los Angeles to audition for “The Partridge Family.” She graduated from high school by correspondence course.
As a young actress, Dey had bouts of anorexia and bulimia between 17-19, as well as a later period of alcohol abuse. She married Lenny Hirshan, age 50, when she was 24, November 1976. They had a daughter, Sarah, in 1978; divorced 1981. Her second husband is TV producer Bernard Sofronski, whom she met at a friend’s house in 1983 and married in 1988.
By the turn of the century, Dey was focusing on a fight against violence toward women, appearing before Congress and serving on the board of the Rape Treatment Center in Santa Monica. She is a recovering alcoholic from the late ’80s. Her daughter Sarah Hirschman, 23 is an actress.
Link to Wikipedia biography