Background
Susan Michaela Sullivan was born on November 18, 1942 in New York City. Susan Sullivan was a very active young girl growing in the busy and hectic city of New York. She is the daughter for Helen Rockett and Brandan Sullivan who worked as an advertising executive. Her father’s job exposed her to the world of media at an early age. She became used to seeing advertisements in her daily life which would set her up nicely for future career.

She was raised in Long Island Village at the Freeport area in Nassau County. She graduated from Freeport High School in 1960. She got Bachelor’s Degree from Hofsta University in 1964.

Stage Acting Career
After college, Susan dove right into the acting industry. Since she got a degree in Drama, she thought that there was no other path to follow but the one she had already started carving. She decided to go the traditional route and cut her teeth in stage acting before she made her away to the silver screen. Starting in the 1960s, he starred opposite of legendary actor, Dustin Hoffman during a Broadway Play under the name of Jimmy Shine. 

Susan starred in a play called Watch On Rhine. Broadway World asked her to speak about her character who makes a large sacrifice, “I play Fanny Farrelly in Lillian Hellman's classic, a timely play Watch On The Rhine. I feel as if I have slipped into Ms. Hellman's skin which is a prickly place to be because she uses so much of her own unique and difficult personality in creating this role. This is what an actor longs for in a character detail, nuance and complexity. While the play takes place in 1940 it translates to our time because it is beyond time. Dealing with the privileged and isolated Farrelly family who must now recognize that their world is not the simple cozy place they assumed it was. When Fanny is forced to deal with the realities of a world and a family in crisis she comes to discover what she actually stands for and what she must sacrifice to survive. Now you have the foundation for a drama that crosses into many of the dilemmas that inform our time. Perhaps all time.

I think people are more involved in both foreign and domestic affairs than they have ever been. We're also more aware of hot spot crises around the world and the vulnerabilities of everything from madmen with guns to climate change science.”