Ward eventually moved to California to pursue acting and landed her first film role in the 1983 Burt Reynolds vehicle "The Man Who Loved Women". Her first regular role in a television drama series, as a socialite on Dennis Weaver's short-lived CBS series, "Emerald Point N.A.S.," followed in the same year. Ward continued to land guest roles in both television and movies throughout the 1980s, most notably opposite Tom Hanks in 1986's "Nothing in Common". In 1991 she was cast as the bohemian alcoholic Teddy Reed on "Sisters," for which she received her first Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1994. She portrayed Helen Kimball, the wife of Dr. Richard Kimball (Harrison Ford), in "The Fugitive", one of the top films of 1993.