Her father, Anthony B. Akers, was a veteran World War II naval officer and attorney who became the United States ambassador to New Zealand during the Kennedy administration.
[2] During her time in New Zealand she attended Victoria University of Wellington and appeared in a 1962 production of Chekhov's The Seagull.
[3] She continued her studies at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York, majoring in theater and political science.
[citation needed] She made her film debut in Brian de Palma's Murder a la Mod in 1968.
In 1986 she retired from acting to found Synergy International, later renamed the Essence Institute, an interdisciplinary think tank involving video and electronic artists, mathematicians, computer scientists and others.