[1][4][5] After their father abandoned the family in 1934, Carolyn and her younger sister, Bette Rhea Jones,[3] moved with their mother into her maternal grandparents' Amarillo home.

[6] Jones suffered from severe asthma that often restricted her childhood activities, and when her condition prevented her from going to the movies, she became an avid reader of Hollywood fan magazines and aspired to become an actress.

[7][8][9] After being spotted by a talent scout at the Playhouse, Jones secured a contract with Paramount Pictures and made her first film, an uncredited part in The Turning Point (1952);[9] had an uncredited bit part as a nightclub hostess in The Big Heat (1953); and a role in House of Wax (also 1953) as the woman who is converted by Vincent Price's character into a Joan of Arc statue.

A bout of pneumonia forced her to withdraw; the role earned Donna Reed the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

She appeared in two Rod Cameron syndicated series, City Detective and State Trooper, as Betty Fowler in the 1956 episode, "The Paperhanger of Pioche”.

Jones also appeared on the CBS anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the episode "The Cheney Vase" (1955), as a secretary assisting her scheming boyfriend Darren McGavin in attempting an art theft, and opposite Ruta Lee.

Also in 1963 she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star - Female for portraying quadruplets—one the murder victim and the others suspects—in the Burke's Law episode "Who Killed Sweet Betsy?"

She guest-starred in CBS's The DuPont Show with June Allyson, with James Best and Jack Mullaney, in the episode "Love on Credit" (1960).

In the 1962–1963 season, Jones guest-starred on CBS's The Lloyd Bridges Show, created by her second husband, television producer Aaron Spelling.

Jones gained the role of the power-driven political matriarch Myrna Clegg in the CBS daytime soap opera Capitol in 1981.