Starting an eight-year television and film career, she made her debut at the age of 18 as the sole female in "The Pawn", the April 6, 1959 installment of her father's 1957–59 NBC Western series, The Restless Gun, and subsequently appeared in episodes of One Step Beyond ("Premonition", seen on March 10, 1959, one month before the broadcast of her Restless Gun performance), Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Graduating Class", December 27, 1959), The Tab Hunter Show ("I Love a Marine", October 30, 1960) and Dobie Gillis ("Goodbye, Mr. Pomfritt, Hello, Mr. Chips", June 13, 1961).

Her film appearances consisted of uncredited bits in the 1962 classic, The Manchurian Candidate, and Elvis Presley's 1965 musical, Girl Happy, as well as small credited supporting roles in 1964's Island of the Blue Dolphins and 1967's Don't Make Waves.

On October 6 she was seen in "The Young Marauders",[2] the fourth episode of ABC's new color Western series, The Big Valley, playing the Southern-accented companion of the handsome head marauder, and, on October 8, in "The Night of Sudden Death",[3] the fourth episode of CBS' new black-and-white (in color, starting with the 1966–67 season) Western/spy/fantasy series, The Wild Wild West.

Playing a fiery and seductive member of a mysterious troupe of traveling circus performers,[4][better source needed] she was prominently featured amidst the supporting cast and left the small screen on a high note.

[6] Shortly after Julie Payne retired from her acting career, another actress named Julie Payne, born in 1946,[7][better source needed] who, in a 1976 interview,[8] gave her birthplace as Sweet Home, Oregon, but has also been erroneously listed as being born in 1940 in Terre Haute, Indiana,[citation needed] began her own acting career, with an appearance in the 1970 film The Strawberry Statement.