She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon with a B.F.A in Theatre and furthered her studies at Bank Street College of Education in New York City.
Fernhoff won an Obie Award for Best Actress in 1959 for her performance in two Off-Broadway plays, Fashion as Gertrude, by Anna Cora Mowatt, and The Geranium Hat as Anne-Betty by Bernard Evslin.
[6][7][8] "Snow People", a play adapted by Av Inlender from his novel, Zoa, also stars Fernhoff, as Anna Blake, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor who discovers fifty years later the Nazi's who terrorized her family.
In 2006 Fernhoff performed Snow People at Colorado State University as a special guest for their Holocaust Awareness Week.
[9] She is a member of Carnival Girls Productions and on November 15, 2014 she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at Speyer Hall, University Settlement in New York City.