She was christened Victoria Louise Samantha Marie Elizabeth Therese Eggar in Hampstead, London, England to an English father and a mother of Dutch and Portuguese descent.

She began her acting career in several Shakespearean companies, and debuted in film in 1962 in The Wild and the Willing. By 1965, she had received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Collector.

She married Tom Stern in 1964 (divorced in 1971) with whom she has a son Nicholas Stern and a daughter Jenna Stern.

She has also appeared in such films as Walk, Don't Run, Doctor Dolittle, The Molly Maguires (1970), The Brood, and The Light at the Edge of the World.

In 2000, she had a brief run on the American soap opera All My Children. She has also appeared as the wife of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's brother Robert in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Recently, she has appeared as Sarah Templeton, the wife of Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton (Donald Sutherland) on the television show Commander in Chief. While she has made it clear that she would like to return to acting in mainstream films, currently her future looks set to be in television.