[2][4] Von Furstenberg, who studied acting in New York at the Neighborhood Playhouse under the renowned teacher Sanford Meisner, performed in a wide range of productions on Broadway for 25 years.

In 1958 she memorably starred opposite Robert Horton on the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, portraying a double-crossing young widow in "The Disappearing Trick", an episode directed by Arthur Hiller.

Much later, in 1983, von Furstenberg performed the role of Lisa Grimaldi on the popular soap opera As the World Turns, serving for a year as a replacement for actress Eileen Fulton, who had left the daytime drama reportedly due to illness.

[8] In September 1951, von Furstenberg announced her engagement to Conrad "Nicky" Hilton Jr., whose divorce from actress Elizabeth Taylor was finalized earlier that year in January.

The combination of being an actor and a parent proved to be frustrating at times for von Furstenberg, who believed that the two roles sometimes blended together in daily life and posed special challenges both in and outside the home.

In 1972, six years after her divorce from Guy Vincent, she expressed her views on the subject in a personal essay titled "Actors Are Not the Only Ones Who Act", which was published in The New York Times on September 24, 1972.

[18] In one portion of her essay she shares the following:...I have gotten my way by 'acting' in some very significant moments in my life when perhaps in the long run it would have been better if I hadn't gotten my way...One of the most frustrating drawbacks of being an actor‐parent is to have your children accuse you of acting when you're being perfectly sincere.