Vickers was born Martha MacVicar in Ann Arbor, Michigan; her father was an automobile dealer.

'"[2] Her work there included the role of Carmen Sternwood, the promiscuous, drug-addicted younger sister of Lauren Bacall's character in The Big Sleep (1946).

She also featured in a musical, The Time, the Place and the Girl (also 1946), followed by two Warner Bros. comedies, Love and Learn and That Way with Women (both 1947).

Vickers's TV appearances included the 1959 Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Jaded Joker", in which she played Sheila Hayes.

[7] Vickers died, aged 46, of esophageal cancer [citation needed] at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Los Angeles on November 2, 1971.