Background
Corbett was born in 1947 in Camp Sherman, Oregon to Henry Ladd Corbett, Junior. and Katherine Minahen (née Coney) "Kay" Corbett. She is a great-great-granddaughter of Oregon pioneer and Senator Henry W. Corbett.
Corbett was born in 1947 in Camp Sherman, Oregon to Henry Ladd Corbett, Junior. and Katherine Minahen (née Coney) "Kay" Corbett. She is a great-great-granddaughter of Oregon pioneer and Senator Henry W. Corbett.
She studied drama at Pittsburgh"s Carnegie Technical before its merger with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to form Carnegie Mellon University in 1967.
Though Corbett has predominantly worked in television, she also gained notoriety for her role in the cult horror film Let"s Scare Jessica to Death (1971). She has also appeared as a recurring character on the International Finance Corporation series Portlandia, beginning in 2013. The Rockford Files: 1974-1978 In 1974 Corbett joined the cast National Broadcasting Company"s The Rockford Files where she played Beth Davenport, the beleaguered lawyer and sometimes lover of series lead Jim Rockford, a private investigator portrayed by James Garner.
Corbett left the series at the end of the fourth season over a salary dispute, though Corbett herself was not looking for more money.
The dispute was between the show"s producers and Universal, who owned Corbett"s contract as a contract player. Corbett went on to do more television work, eventually returning to play Davenport again in the Rockford Files television movies of the 1990s.