Rupp was born in Glendale, California, and raised in Boxford, Massachusetts, where she attended Masconomet Regional High School, graduating in 1969. She has two sisters. She went on to attend the University of Rochester in New York, graduating with a B.A. degree in 1974. On campus, she was an active member of Drama House, a small theatre club and venue.[citation needed]\n', '

Rupp left Massachusetts in 1979 to pursue an acting career in New York City. She frequently performed on stage and appeared in commercials before winning her first television role in 1980 as Sheila, a topless dancer, on the daytime drama All My Children. Earlier in the same year, Rupp played Helen, the wife of a cheating husband, in Sharon Tipsword\'s one-act comedy Second Verse, produced as part of a play festival at New York\'s Nat Horne Theater. \n', '

Another notable stage performance was as the young bride Eleanor in the 1985 production of A. R. Gurney\'s The Middle Ages at the Whole Theater Company, established by Olympia Dukakis in Montclair, New Jersey. \n', '

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