The oldest of four siblings born to a surgeon father, Marilyn Jones was raised in the affluent Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe. After
graduating from high school in Michigan, she attended Miami University (Ohio) and eventually graduated from the University of
Colorado with a humanities degree.
After a stint in New York waiting on tables and working as an office clerk in-between acting jobs, she was signed with 30 other performers to Columbia Pictures' Talent and Development Workshop and sent to Los Angeles. The program folded when the executive, who ran the studio at the time, resigned. Jones did manage to land an agent and began acting on episodic television. Her performances in
Harassment (1980) and
Good-Bye Radar: Part 1 (1979) were especially strong. She landed roles in two short-lived prime-time soaps,
Secrets of Midland Heights (1980) (CBS) and
King's Crossing (1982) (ABC). She worked steadily throughout the 1980s.
Murder, She Wrote(1984)as Bridie Harmon, Linda Dixon, Marie Comouche
Coopersmith(1992)as Jeanine Wilder
Matlock(1986)as Anne Johnson
Quantum Leap(1989)as Cissy Davis
On the Block(1990)as Libby
Meteor(1979)
Short Memory(1979)