Born in San Mateo, CA, the product of a broken home, she was brought up by strangers and educated in various West Coast convents. She married briefly at 15 and again at 17. By the time she was 21, she had two divorces behind her. Before coming to Hollywood she was variously employed as an apple picker, a waitress, and a factory worker. Determined on a career in show business, she tried folksinging and was a drummer with a band. She enrolled in Jeff Corey's acting classes and had barely begun her studies when she was tested and selected to play Lana Turner's mixed-up daughter in PEYTON PLACE (1957), a role for which she was nominated for an Oscar®. She subsequently starred in a number of films and seemed ensured of a bright future, when, in 1959, she left Hollywood abruptly, for peaceful retirement in Vermont, stating that she was "running away from destruction." When she ran short on funds she tried to get back into films but was barred from work because she had walked out on her contract with Fox. She finally returned briefly to the screen in the late 1960s [e.g., WILD IN THE STREETS (1968) and BLOODY MAMA (1970)], and after another long absence reappeared in films once more in the late 1970s (I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN, 1977). Little was heard of her after that, although it was said she had returned to her poetry and took up photography. The newspapers reported her death on November 19, 1992, in Los Angeles at age 54, from respiratory problems due to complications from Lyme disease, which she had contracted back in 1977.  Nominated for Supporting Actress 1957: PEYTON PLACE 1 nomination