Her parents split up when she was a child, and after the death of her mother in 1969, she relocated to New York City to live with her father, who threw her out when she was 18.
[2] Her first starring role came in the 1981 film Lovely But Deadly, playing the lead role of Mary Ann "Lovely" Lovitt, and in the same year she starred opposite Robert Ginty in The Alchemist, which didn't see release until two years later.
[1] In the 1980s she appeared in popular television shows such as Nero Wolfe, Hart to Hart, Three's Company,[3] and The Thorn Birds,[3] as well as roles in TV movies Miracle On Ice (1981), The Rules of Marriage (1982), Double Switch (1987), and Lies of the Children (1991, credited as Lucinda Schiff).
She gave up her acting career in the early 1990s, subsequently working as an interior designer.
[1] After a 15-year-long battle with recurring brain tumors, Schiff died on December 30, 2015.