This dark, wide-eyed beauty began her career as a child actor at the age of eight, touring with her parents' stock company. When she was a teenager, Adams landed her first significant TV role as a guest in an episode of the drama series "East Side/West Side" (CBS). In 1965, she was cast as Burl Ives' daughter in the short-lived ABC series, "O.K. Crackerby".

Ten years later, Adams made her film debut in "Death Corps/Shockwaves/Almost Human" (1975). She went on to co-star in Philip Kaufman's remake "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978) as the woman who first notices the changes wrought by the aliens. That same year, Adams portrayed a woman torn between Richard Gere and Sam Shepherd in Terence Malick's mythic "Days of Heaven". She again played a woman caught in a love triangle in Richard Lester's "Cuba" (1979), this time torn between Sean Connery and Chris Sarandon. In Lee Grant's "Tell Me a Riddle" (1980), she was the granddaughter of Melvyn Douglas and Lela Kedrova. Adams recreated her stage role as a TV talk show producer who wants more from her relationship with a mystery writer (Ben Masters) in the gentle romantic comedy, "Key Exchange" (1985). She had one of her best screen roles in Allison Anders' "Gas Food Lodging" (1992) as a single mother coping with raising two teenage daughters. She played one of the adult roles in Melanie Mayron's "The Baby-sitter's Club" (1995).

Adams has also appeared onstage ("Key Exchange", "The Heidi Chronicles") and in several TV-movies and miniseries, including "The Innocents Abroad" (PBS, 1983) and "Special People" (1984) in which she portrayed Diane Dupuy, a Canadian woman who created the Famous People Players, a puppet troupe consisting of mentally handicapped young adults. Adams is perhaps best known, however, for her role in "Lace" (ABC, 1984), as one of a trio of college friends confronted by a petulant teenage (Phoebe Cates) seeking to uncover the identity of her mother.