An adopted only child, raised Catholic, and briefly married at age 17, Sharon Mitchell was an Off-Broadway actress and dancer who toured with the Martha Graham company, before becoming an adult actress in the mid 1970s.

During her career in hardcore pornography, Sharon Mitchell appeared in over 2000 movies and directed 38. She made many appearances as a bondage model in underground magazines and, in the 1990s, made the transition from sex films to bondage and S&M videos, nearly always playing the role of a tough dominatrix. During her heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, Sharon Mitchell was distinguished by her lean, wiry physique and androgynous appearance — angular facial features with mascara and rouge and short teased hair, which was sometimes worn in a butch mullet style — as well as her vigorous cunnilingus technique. Sharon Mitchell is a member of the AVN Awards Hall of Fame, Legends of Erotica and XRCO Hall of Fame.

As an erotic performer, Sharon Mitchell was a soft butch lesbian. She also performed sex scenes with men (often as part of a bisexual threesome with another female performer), but this was usually in her early career. She contracted herpes, chlamydia and trichomoniasis during her career. During her adult work, Sharon Mitchell was addicted to heroin for about two decades, a habit which she eventually overcame. Sharon contracted hepatitis from needle use. She subsequently referred to her 16-year addiction to heroin as her "blackout years". On March 30, 1996, Sharon Mitchell was attacked and raped by a stalker who almost killed her. After that incident, she left the sex industry."