Her parents divorced when she was young and her mother, actress Maya Kenin, married character actor John P. Ryan.

Kenin began acting as a child and won her first professional part with a supporting role in the 1972 holiday TV special The House Without a Christmas Tree, which starred Jason Robards and Lisa Lucas.

In December 1980, she portrayed the role of "Libby" in the touring production of Neil Simon's I Ought to Be in Pictures, starring Bill Macy and Patricia Harty.

[2] She also guest starred in several episodes of ABC Afterschool Special, and in the 1982 TV film A Piano for Mrs. Cimino opposite Bette Davis.

In the same year she played, in Honkytonk Man, the part of an aspiring young singer alongside Clint Eastwood as he makes his way to Nashville.