There is some sadness for me now about acting because it used to be that there was a reverence for actors.

She was recently seen on Broadway in David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People and opened 24 April 2012 in Nice Work If You Can Get It (musical). She attended the Oak Grove School for Girls in Maine. Her other television credits include appearances in The Patty Duke Show All In The Family Archie Bunker's Place Open Admissions Frasier Law & Order: Special Victims Unit the TV-movie The UFO Incident: The Story of Betty and Barney Hill (opposite James Earl Jones) and the PBS production of June Moon.

Nominated on four occasions for a Tony Award in 2004 Parsons was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. She received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Blanche Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and was also nominated for her work in Rachel Rachel (1968). More recently her television work included a role in the sitcom Roseanne.