Establishing a reputation early in her career as a "hippie", Hershey experienced conflict between her personal life and her acting goals. Her career suffered a decline during a six-year relationship with actor David Carradine, with whom she had a child. She experimented with a change in stage name that she later regretted. During this time, her personal life was highly publicized and ridiculed. Her acting career was not well established until she separated from Carradine and changed her stage name back to Hershey. Later in her career, she began to keep her personal life private.