She played Gloria Stivic, the daughter of Archie and Edith Bunker in All in the Family, for which she won two Emmy Awards, and Babette on Gilmore Girls.

[2] Her father abandoned the family when Struthers was approximately nine years old,[2] after which she was raised by her single mother in the Concordia neighborhood of northeast Portland.

Around that time, Struthers debuted as Gloria Stivic on the 1970s sitcom All in the Family; producer Norman Lear had found the actress dancing on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

After a shaky start, the series became a hit beginning with its summer reruns, giving tens of millions of viewers the chance to see Gloria defending her viewpoints about negative stereotypes and inequality.

In 2012, Struthers recalled the serendipity that helped her land the role: I had just gotten let go from The Tim Conway Comedy Hour because the suits in New York said that I made the show look cheap.

[6] She was a semi-regular panelist on the 1990 revival of Match Game and an occasional guest on Win, Lose or Draw (even filling in for Vicki Lawrence as host for a week).

She also had a recurring role as Bill Miller's manipulative mother, Louise, on Still Standing and regularly appeared on Gilmore Girls as Babette Dell.

Struthers has been a spokesperson for International Correspondence School (ICS) in television ads, pitching the famous line "Do you want to make more money?