She is perhaps best known for playing Jenny Wolek on the television soap opera One Life to Live from 1978 to 1986, which earned her a Daytime Emmy Award nomination.

From 1978 to 1986, she played Jenny Wolek in the ABC daytime soap opera, One Life to Live.

Thayer assumed the role in August 1978 amid a contract dispute between Katherine Glass and ABC Daytime.

In film, Thayer co-starred in Hero and the Terror (1988) and Murder in Mexico: The Bruce Beresford-Redman Story (2015).

[6] Thayer co-founded the charitable organization ZazAngels with actor Michael Zaslow and his wife, Susan Hufford, to generate funds for researching amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease).