Scott attended Radcliffe and UCLA before studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in England. Shortly after her return to the States, she won a Theatre World Award for her 1956 Broadway debut in Child of Fortune. Scott then quickly made a contract with Warner Bros. and made her movie debut that same year with a minor role in John Ford's epic The Searchers.
She had a few minor film roles in the years following, including that of Pegeen in the 1958 movie Auntie Mame. By the 1960s, she appeared primarily in television rolls, including the 1962–1963 season of The Virginian. In the television series Mr. Lucky (1959–1960), she had a recurring role as Maggie Shank-Rutherford, Lucky's girlfriend.
Her last notable film role was playing the wife of Dick Van Dyke's character in the 1971 comedy Cold Turkey although she sporadically played minor characters throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Pippa Scott was a founding partner of Lorimar Productions, an Emmy-winning television company and the single largest provider of programming to the networks for two and a half decades.
