Acting Bay debuted on an episode of
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis in 1963. and
The Skydivers (film, 1963). She appeared in various TV series throughout the 1960s, including episodes of
Dr. Kildare (1964) and
Perry Mason (1965). Susan Bay's film debut in a leading role occurred in the Jerry Lewis comedy
The Big Mouth (1967). Bay portrayed Suzie Cartwright, the love interest of Lewis's character, Gerald Clamson. During the 1970s and 1980s, Bay's television roles included episodes of
One Day at a Time (1976),
Starsky and Hutch (1977),
Hart to Hart (1980),
Family Ties (1983) and
Remington Steele (1983). She also had a lead role in the television pilot
Alone at Last (1980). She played Admiral Rollman in
Star Trek: Deep Space Nines first and second season in the episodes "Past Prologue" (1993) and "Whispers" (1994). Bay appeared as Rebecca in the 2009 film
Mother and Child. In 2019, she began to appear in the
CDC's Anti-Smoking Campaign "Tips from Former Smokers" discussing her late husband's battle with
COPD.
Directing In 1979, Bay and other members of the
Original Six, a group of women directors, created the Women's Steering Committee of the
Directors Guild of America, to protest against gender discrimination in Hollywood and support female employment on film and television sets at the directing level. Bay was a production consultant on "The Good Mother" (1988), which was directed by Leonard Nimoy. In 1998, Bay was the executive producer for the documentary film
Liza Lou, on the glass bead artist
Liza Lou. She has also worked on documentaries about
Twyla Tharp and the magazine
Mother Jones. In 2007, Bay directed the American premiere of
''Shakespeare's Will'', a solo play by
Vern Thiessen that featured
Jeanmarie Simpson as
Anne Hathaway. Susan Bay Nimoy returned to directing in 2018 with
Eve, writing the script as she mourned her husband, Leonard Nimoy, and starring in the film after the lead actress pulled out at the last minute due to discomfort with revealing her aging body on film. The lack of representation of "women of age" onscreen was one of Nimoy's motivations in creating the film.
Eve was one of five films at the 2018
Sundance Film Festival to focus on women in their 70s, and was positively received. In 1999, Bay and Nimoy made a $100,000 donation to the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) so it could purchase
The Ballad of Sexual Dependency by
Nan Goldin. In 2007, they financially supported
WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, an
art exhibition at the MOCA. In 2008, they made a $1 million donation to The Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater at
Griffith Observatory. == Personal life ==