Pollard was born in Manchester. In her early years, Evelyn Pollard (then known as Pollock) lived in Maida Vale, London with her parents and younger twin brothers, Peter Pollard and Ralph Pollard, who now live in Southern California. Her immigrant parents were in the costume jewellery business. She attended an all-girls Catholic school in south London where she developed a love of journalism. Her career in journalsim began at Honey magazine where she was the tea girl, eventually becoming fashion editor in 1967, moving to the Daily Mirror the following year.

She was the second female editor, in modern times, of a national newspaper in the UK editing the Sunday Mirror from 1987—1991 and the Sunday Express from 1991-1994. Wendy Henry former editor of the News of the World and the Sunday People was the first.

In 1985 she was launch editor-in-chief of ELLE magazine in the US and edited Sunday magazine for the News of the World and You magazine for the Mail on Sunday. She has also worked in television as features editor of TV-am (1982—1983), and devised the series Frocks-on-the-Box for the ITV contractor TVS during the 1980s, a series which ran for two thirteen part series. She has appeared regularly on radio and TV and was a regular participant in Through the Keyhole. In 2003 Pollard was a guest panelist on the award winning talk show Loose Women.

She has been a member of the Competition Commission’s Newspaper Takeover Panel, appointed in 1999. Her publications include Jackie, a biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1971) and has jointly written four novels, Splash (1995); Best of Enemies (1996); Double Trouble (1997); Unfinished Business (1998). She was set up in the Brass Eye episode 'Science' in 1997. In 2007 she was writing a novel for publishers Harper Collins in the U.S.

Pollard was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. She married Barry Winkleman (born 1939) in Hendon, London, in 1968. They have a daughter, TV presenter Claudia Winkleman. Their marriage ended in divorce. Pollard is, since 1979, married to Nicholas Lloyd, a former editor of the Daily Express (1986—95); they have a son, Oliver.