Jaya was born in 1994 and in 1958 she debuted in the industry with the Bakta Prahlada movie. From then she has been serving the industry playing different roles in movies. She acted in more than 350 films in her career spanning 6 decades and received many awards. From the very start of her career she only acted as a character artist.

She acted with all the top yesteryear actors like Rajkumar, kalyan Kumar, uday Kumar, Dwarakesh, balakrishna etc. She even did some serials on television for a while. She received karnataka State award in the year 2004 for the supporting role she played in Gowdru movie. At present the kannada film industry is mourning the death of the actress. They are sending condolence messages through social media to her family. Many are saying that it is really a big loss for the kannada industry.