She is perhaps best known for her role as Vivian Alamain in Days of Our Lives from 1992 to 2000, 2009 to 2011, 2017 to 2018, 2020, and 2023, Augusta Lockridge on Santa Barbara from 1984 to 1991, and Emily Tanner on Beacon Hill since 2014.

[4] Sorel's early career was on the stage; she spent several years on Broadway, playing roles in Take Her, She's Mine and Man and Boy.

I Love You (1971), Every Little Crook and Nanny (1972), The Return of Charlie Chan (1973), Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Mazes and Monsters (1982), Where the Boys Are '84 (1984), and Crimes of Passion (1984), among others.

Sorel has made guest appearances on more than 50 prime-time programs and TV movies, including Star Trek (as "Rayna", in the episode "Requiem for Methuselah", which aired in 1969).

She made other guest appearances on such programs as Bonanza (as Marie in the episode "The Strange One", 1965), Daniel Boone, The Virginian, Night Gallery, Route 66, The Big Valley, The Fugitive, Search (as Magda Reiner, in "Live Men Tell Tales"), Vega$, Hart to Hart, Medical Center, Charlie's Angels, The Incredible Hulk, Hawaii Five-O, The Eddie Capra Mysteries, Knots Landing, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, among others.

In between stints, she also spent a year appearing as a strong-willed but decent District Attorney, Judith Russell Sanders, on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, from August 1986 through November 1987.

[13] In June 2011, Sorel was let go from Days of Our Lives along with many other actors to make room for the return of super couple John and Marlena and several other characters.