Susan Smith was a talent agent who later became a manager. Respected for her professionalism and keen eye for talent, Smith established her own agency in New York in 1969. She is reported to have been the youngest woman to ever found her own talent agency.
Over the next 32 years she thrived as the representative for a number of well known performers who moved between theater, film and television. They included Brian Dennehy, Kathy Bates, Melanie Lynskey and David Paymer. She closed her agency in 2001 and thereafter worked as a manager for a handful of clients such as Bob Balaban, Graham Greene and Richard Masur.