Everything Susan Dey: Circle of Fear

Showing posts with label Circle of Fear. Show all posts

Redux: Susan Dey on Circle of Fear

One of the earliest topics we discussed here was Susan Dey's fantastic guest appearance on the horror anthology Circle of Fear (known originally as Ghost Story). As mentioned previously, Susan Dey's 1973 guest role on Circle of Fear was a nice look at the actress beyond the confines of The Partridge Family.

Why are we discussing this again? Well, mainly it is an excuse to put up 25 remastered images of a lovely, impossibly young, Susan Dey. When we looked at this performance previously, the pictures of the actress were incredible but the quality of the film print left a little something to be desired.

Beyond doing a solid job acting, Susan Dey looks absolutely amazing in her appearance on Ghost Story. So good, in fact, that I like to think that even non-fans (do these people really exist??) would be hard-pressed to deny that Susan Dey had one of the most striking faces and lovely overall visual appearances of the early 1970s.

Again, head here to see an earlier post about the same subject and go here to check out an original newspaper ad.

Here are 25 images of Susan Dey on Circle of Fear:

Susan Dey ponders a Ghost Story

Susan Dey, being eyed by actor Scott Thomas, poses for a promotional photo for her 1973 guest appearance on Circle of Fear.

Clip of Susan Dey on Circle of Fear

Here's a nice clip of Susan Dey on the horror anthology series Circle of Fear (Ghost Story was the original title of the show) in 1973. This was Susan Dey's first TV appearance outside of The Partridge Family (though she had a small role in the 1972 feature film Skyjacked) and one of only two instances where she appeared in a horror-related project (the other being the TV movie Disappearance in 2002). Edit: Also (as a Susan Dey fan on Facebook kindly pointed out), Susan Dey's 1995 TV movie Deadly Love, about vampires and murder, should also rightfully be considered a horror-related project. My mistake for not including it!

In the Circle of Fear episode called 'Doorway to Death', Susan Dey plays big sister to two younger kids, played by Leif Garrett and Dawn Lyn. Luckily, Susan Dey already had a bunch of experience acting with children since she had been doing it on The Partridge Family since 1970!

Susan Dey on Circle of Fear

What was Susan Dey's first television appearance outside of The Partridge Family? It was featured role on the supernatural anthology series Circle of Fear, a series formerly known as Ghost Story. In the episode, titled "Doorway to Death," Susan Dey portrays Peggy, the older sister of two younger siblings (played by Leif Garrett and Dawn Lyn, real life siblings who appeared in several other features together).

The story begins when the kids and their father, played veteran film and TV actor Barry Nelson, move into a cheaper-than-it-should-be apartment after their mother dies. The little kids meet a man who lives upstairs, but no one else can confirm that the man exists. Eventually, the younger siblings decide to 'give' their older sister Peggy to the man, since the mysterious man's wife is dead. Negative consequences follow this dubious decision.

Circle of Fear was co-produced by Screen Gems, the company behind The Partridge Family. The episode was great exposure for Susan Dey, showing her in a different context on television for the first time. She already had experience acting alongside small children, as demonstrated on The Partridge Family, which made her perfect for the role. However, here she was able to deal with more adult subjects (such as murder and death). And while Circle of Fear is relatively mild, it was certainly a step away from the innocence of The Partridge Family.

Susan Dey handles her duties here well and even does some of the ubiquitous horror maneuvers (such as screaming in terror). After viewing the episode I was left wondering: why didn't Susan Dey do a real horror movie?