[1] Raised in Westfield, New Jersey, Falkenberg attended University of California, Los Angeles in the 1960s, where she played on the basketball, tennis and volleyball varsity teams and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in filmmaking.

[1][2] After graduation she worked as a documentary filmmaker and didn't join the professional tour until she was 38 years of age.

Retiring from full-time tennis in 1990, she achieved a career high singles world ranking of 360.

In 2013, as a 66-year old, she came up against Naomi Osaka in the qualifying draw for the Rock Hill ITF event.

She defeated 22-year-old Rosalyn Small 6–0, 6–1 in the first qualifying round in Alabama in 2016 then she also played against the world's number one junior Taylor Townsend, which received considerable media attention.