Courtney Pledger was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and graduated from Millsaps College (Jackson, Mississippi) with a B.A. in Theater Arts. After beginning her career as an actress in New York and Los Angeles, she moved over to the production side when, on a trip to Upstate New York with a friend, she discovered the story of housewife-turned-activist
Lois Gibbs, whose life became the subject of
Lois Gibbs and the Love Canal (1982), a 1982 CBS film, starring Academy Award-winning actress
Marsha Mason.
She went on to produce the Emmy-winning
A Killing in a Small Town (1990),
Challenger (1990) (a mini-series for ABC), and the ABC/London Weekend Television/Television France series
A Fine Romance (1989). During these years, she was a high level executive for several film/TV production companies, including Hearst Entertainment, The IndieProd Company, and IndieProd/Rastar. She later moved to London, and, in 2000, partnered with British producer
Sarah Radclyffe on Jigsaw Films, which has developed a number of high-profile studio projects. Films which she has co-produced include
Cherub: The Recruit,
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009),
State of the Art (2019), and
Kensuke's Kingdom (2023).