[citation needed] She studied with Stella Adler in the early 1980s, and appeared at the 92nd Street Y in New York in the prestigious Lyrics and Lyricists program in 1985, directed by Maurice Levine.
[citation needed] She starred in the 1988 production of Jacques Brel with Karen Akers at Town Hall in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She also played several minor movie roles, including the films Taking Off (1971), Garbo Talks (1984), The Flamingo Kid (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), and Crossing Delancey (1988), and on the television shows Kate & Allie and Guiding Light.
[citation needed] Ackerman claimed to have been born with the ability to remember birthdates and developed her interest in astrology in her early teens.
In 1974 she and her then-boyfriend, Richard Belzer, obtained their first computerized astrological charts from Astroflash, a small booth set up in Grand Central Terminal in New York City that offered the earliest computer-generated horoscopes.
Her interest grew through the 1970s and as an amateur astrologer she collected data (birth dates, times, and places) of her fellow performers between shows at both The Improv and Catch a Rising Star.