She was featured in Broadway productions of It's a Bird It's a Plane It's Superman (Philadelphia previews),[12] and Write Me A Murder,[13] before playing Myra on the soap opera The Secret Storm for several years in the early 1960s.

[15] Most notably, Hotchkis played Dr. Nancy Cunningham, sometime girlfriend of Oscar Madison on the television version of The Odd Couple and Ellen in the Emmy-winning series My World and Welcome to It.

[16] Hotchkis began writing original material in the 70s, beginning with a one-woman play, Legacy depicting an upper-class housewife having a mental and emotional breakdown.

[21] She subsequently starred in The Glass Menagerie at Los Angeles Theater Center and did occasional television roles.

[15][22] Beginning in the late 1980s, Hotchkis resumed writing original material, this time moving beyond legitimate theater into the performance art world.

[11][15] Hotchkis' lifelong interest in psychology led her to eventually become a part-time paraprofessional in aggression training at the Institute of Group Psychotherapy (mentored by George Bach).