After completing high school, she entered Baylor University in Waco, Texas, but she spent her final year of college at UCLA in Los Angeles, California. After graduating from UCLA, she married Ralph Pine, her agent. The couple moved to New York City, New York, where she landed the role of "Carolyn Stoddard" on the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows in June 1966. While on the show, she met David Ford, who was one of the other actors on the show. Following her divorce from Pine, Barrett and Ford married in 1967; the marriage lasted two years.