Ramsey was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the daughter of Eleanor (née Smith), the former national treasurer of the Girl Scouts of the USA, and Nathan Mobley, an insurance executive.

[2] She attended prestigious Rosemary Hall in Greenwich, CT and matriculated to Bennington College where she became interested in theatre.

[citation needed] In the 1970s, Ramsey began a successful Hollywood career in character roles and appeared in such television programs as Little House on the Prairie, Wonder Woman, Three's Company and Ironside.

Ramsey's somewhat slurred speech, a trademark of her later performances, was caused in part from having had some of her tongue and her jaw removed during surgery for esophageal cancer in 1984.

She died on August 11 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.