She was offered a scholarship to enroll at the Pasadena Playhouse, but declined and attended Columbia University[1] as a political science major instead.
A life member of the Actors Studio,[2] Gary began her acting career in the late 1960s doing guest appearances on several popular TV shows.
These include Night Gallery, Dragnet 1968, in an episode entitled "The Big Shipment", McCloud, The Marcus-Nelson Murders (the pilot for Kojak), and The F.B.I.. She began her first major acting role when she was a guest star on seven episodes of the TV series Ironside, among them "Tom Dayton Is Loose Among Us", in which she played the substitute librarian Miss Kirk, who pushes the unstable Tom Dayton too hard, and "In Search of an Artist", as a woman with a drinking problem who may have been involved in a murder.
[6] Gary married entertainment industry executive Sidney Sheinberg on August 19, 1956, at the age of 19,[7][8] with whom she has two sons named Jonathan J. and William David.
[9] She retired from acting after her appearance in the film 1941 (1979), only briefly returning to reprise the role of Ellen Brody in Jaws: The Revenge (1987).