Born in Brooklyn, New York, Golden began her career as the lead singer of The Shirts (which headlined CBGB's in the late 70s). During the early 1990s she performed as part of the duo Golden Carillo with Frank Carillo. They released three albums, Fire in Newtown, Toxic Emotion, and Back for More. She then returned to The Shirts. Since then she has performed solo and with a band. In 1984, her song "Hang Up the Phone" was featured on the soundtrack of the film Sixteen Candles. She performs a revue of songs from her stage career along with originals called Annie Golden's Velvet Prison.

While with The Shirts she was discovered by Miloš Forman who gave her a part in Hair. She had featured roles on Cheers and Miami Vice. Golden was the voice of Marina in the Don Bluth film The Pebble and the Penguin. She played a taxi driver in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys (1995) where she had a scene with Bruce Willis and Madeline Stowe. In recent years, she has been seen in commercials for Coinstar, in which she portrays The Tooth Fairy. She appeared in the musical film Temptation with actors Adam Pascal, Tony Award Winners Alice Ripley and Anika Noni Rose, and film actress Zoe Saldana and in 2009 had a small role in I Love You Phillip Morris, with actors Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey, playing a simple woman requiring legal assistance.

In 2013, she began playing the role of the nearly mute Norma Romano in the original Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black for which she won a 2015 Screen Actors Guild Award (along with the rest of the ensemble cast).

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