[6] Due to her father's work, Pelikan spent her childhood in several different countries, including France, Japan, and Italy, before returning to the United States when she was a teenager, settling in Bethesda, Maryland.

[6] Pelikan shifted her focus to acting, and attended the Juilliard School in New York City with a full scholarship to its drama division.

[8] Pelikan had her feature film debut as the younger version of Vanessa Redgrave's title character in the drama Julia (1977).

[9] Pelikan portrayed the title character of the horror film Jennifer (1978), starring opposite Nina Foch and John Gavin, and subsequently appeared as the lusty Lucy Scanlon in the television miniseries Studs Lonigan (1979), co-starring with Harry Hamlin, Colleen Dewhurst, and Brad Dourif.

She won a Drama-Logue Award for her role in a Los Angeles-based production of Only a Broken String of Pearls (1995), a one-woman play about Zelda Fitzgerald by Willard Simms.