Pamela Sue Martin

Martin was born in Westport, Connecticut. She graduated in 1971 from Staples High School located in Westport, Connecticut. Martin was working in a hamburger stand for $1.45 an hour before she graduated when a friend of hers told her that she was earning $60 an hour modeling in New York. Martin decided to follow in her friend's footsteps as a teen model for print ads and television commercials.

Martin began modeling at age 16. When she heard that Columbia Pictures was looking for girls to audition for a film called To Find a Man (1972), she decided to audition, despite the fact that she had absolutely no prior training, experience, or even ambitions in the dramatic arts. After a full three months, the producers concluded that she should be cast in the role of the lead female character. She was chosen by producer Irwin Allen to appear in The Poseidon Adventure in 1972, at age 19 based on her work in To Find a Man. More films followed, including Our Time (1974), co-starring Parker Stevenson, and Buster and Billie (1974). At her manager's insistence, she began working in television. Later, her work as ABC-TV's Nancy Drew made her something of a teen idol. Initially, the ABC program alternated each week between The Nancy Drew Mysteries and The Hardy Boys Mysteries. In season 2, the shows were merged and renamed The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, which led to Nancy's role being reduced. This frustrated Martin, who left the series as a result. Her final appearance as Nancy aired on January 1, 1978. Martin appeared in a cover pictorial in the July 1978 issue of Playboy magazine, with the headline "TV's Nancy Drew Undraped". In the magazine, she cited the merger of the two shows as her reason for quitting the series. Martin portrayed feisty and spoiled heiress Fallon Carrington Colby on the ABC nighttime soap opera Dynasty from its debut in 1981 through to the end of the fourth season in 1984. After Martin left (of her own accord), the character was initially portrayed as "missing and presumed dead". The series recast the role with actress Emma Samms at the end of the fifth season in 1985. Martin hosted Saturday Night Live on February 16, 1985. In the 2000s, she was artistic director of the Interplanetary Theater Group, in Idaho. After that, she has worked sporadically in film and television, with her last appearance being the 2019 pilot episode of the Nancy Drew reboot, as a character named Harriet Grosset.

Martin has spoken about her struggle with interstitial cystitis.

Martin has been married four times. Her first husband was Charles Gates, whom she married in 1975; they divorced in 1979. Her second marriage was to Jorge Brusch in 1979; the marriage lasted two years. After the divorce, she married Manuel Rojas; their marriage lasted for five years. Martin married Bruce Allen in 1990. This marriage lasted until 1998 and produced a son.