[3] Her father, Louis Clayton Crosby, was a scriptwriter-songwriter (he was also the National Commercial Spokesman for Dodge Automobiles on The Lawrence Welk Show),[4][5][6][7] and her mother, Linda Hayes, was "an RKO contract actress in the 1940s".

[3] She was ranked as high as #7 in singles[8] in US junior tennis competition and #4 in doubles,[9] which she often played with her elder sister, Linda Lou, as her partner.

Her first movie role was a lead as Ann Chris in Michael Shurtleff's film version of his play Call Me by My Rightful Name (1972), opposite Don Murray and Otis Young.

The following year she played Kay Butler in the 20th Century Fox crime drama The Laughing Policeman (1973).

[citation needed] Crosby starred as Judith Main in the 1994 TV miniseries North and South: Book III.

The same year she appeared in the Lifetime movie Untamed Love (1994), based on Torey Hayden's One Child, and later starred in the film Ablaze (2001).