After completing her secondary education, she enrolled at Brown University,but never attended due to a severe car accident.

Beginning her career on the stage, she debuted with To Broadway with Love and later played in By Jupiter and Apple Tree, which toured the US.

[1] In 1968, Crawford read for Dark Shadows, but simultaneously was offered a part in Sam's Song (1969) with Robert De Niro and took the movie job.

When the movie ended, she was asked to play the part of Beth Chavez, the Collins family maid, in Dark Shadows.

Crawford returned to television the following year in a made-for-television movie, Maid in America which starred Susan Clark and Alex Karras.