Barbara Gutscher, the eldest of four siblings (two boys and two girls), was born in Reichenberg, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, a part of Czechoslovakia that was ceded to Nazi Germany and is today part of the Czech Republic. After World War II, her family was placed in a resettlement camp in the American occupation zone in Germany. They were granted permission to emigrate to the United States under the humanitarian provisions of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948.

These were teenage Dancers who danced live to the hit songs of the day and became locally known in their own right by being on television six days per week. She was on the show from 1959 until 1962, then moved to Hollywood to get into the film industry, changing her Germanic sounding surname to the French sounding Barbara Bouchet.

After arriving in the United States, the family lived in Five Points, California on the west side of the Central Valley and eventually settled in San Francisco, where Gutscher was raised. During the early 1960s San Francisco Bay Area television station KPIX-TV ran a show named The KPIX Dance Party and offered Gutscher the opportunity to become a member of the show's dance group.

Bouchet began her career modelling for magazine covers and appearing in television commercials, before eventually becoming an Actress. Her first acting role was a minor part in What a Way to Go! (1964), which led to a series of other roles in the 1960s. She appeared in the films John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1964), In Harm's Way (1964), and Agent for H.A.R.M. (1966).

She appeared, semi-nude, in two editions of Playboy magazine: May 1965 (stills from In Harm's Way) and February 1967 ("The Girls of Casino Royale").

In Casino Royale (1967), Bouchet played the role of Miss Moneypenny. In 1968, she guest-starred in the Star Trek episode "By Any Other Name" (1968), and appeared in the musical film Sweet Charity (1969) playing Ursula.

Tired of being typecast and unable to get starring roles in Hollywood, Bouchet moved to Italy in 1970 and began acting in Italian films, such as Black Belly of the Tarantula and Sex with a Smile (40 gradi all'ombra del lenzuolo, or Forty Degrees In The Shade Of The Sheet, 1975). She starred with Gregory Peck in The Scarlet and The Black (1983), a successful TV movie. In 1985, she established a production company and started to produce a successful series of fitness books and videos. In addition, Bouchet opened a fitness studio in Rome. In 2002, Bouchet appeared in Gangs of New York, playing Mrs. Schermerhorn.

In 1974, Bouchet married Luigi Borghese, a Producer, with whom she has two sons: Alessandro (b. 1976), a TV chef, and Massimiliano (b. 1989), a bartender. Her husband subsequently produced some of her later films. They separated in 2006, citing different aspirations.