Ingalls was born on January 14, 1950, in Charleston, South Carolina, to Frederick G. Ingalls, a United States. Navy Commander, and Elaine Wright Ingalls, a relative of the Wright Brothers. Her father remarried JoAnn DiSandro, who raised Joyce Ingalls and her four siblings, as well as four more children of Frederick and JoAnn.
She also had a guest role in the television series, Starsky and Hutch, in 1979 as the mutual love interest of both main characters. Ingalls" mother died in 1959. The contest led to a contract with the Ford Agency.
She appeared in numerous fashion magazines, including Cosmopolitan, Mademoiselle, and Vogue.
Ingalls was the face a 1973 advertising campaign for Yardley of London, a British cosmetics company. She also appeared in print ads for Black Velvet whisky, Breck Shampoo (as one of the Breck Girls), and Clairol.
Ingalls was best known for her role as Bunchie, a prostitute who comforts Sylvester Stallone"s character, Cosmo Carboni, in the 1978 drama, Paradise Alley. She also appeared in The Manitoba Who Would Not Die in 1975, Deadly Force in 1983, and Lethal Weapon 4 in 1998.
Ingalls died of an undisclosed illness at Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, on August 5, 2015, at the age of 65.
Her father, Frederick Ingalls, died in 1996.
