She was born as Anna May Walthall in 1894 (possibly in 1890) on a cotton plantation owned by her father in Shelby County in Alabama, the second youngest of eleven children of Junius Leigh Walthall, a former officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War,[1][2] and Anne Mallory née Wallace.

[5] In 1915 she appeared in ten films including: Beth Slade in Light o' Love, Lib in The Fable of the Through Train, Mrs Drummer in Home Again,[6] and Senorita Ynez in At the Stroke of the Angelus.

Her other films included Favorite of the Harem (uncredited) in Intolerance (1916);[7] Mrs Dana in The Truant Soul (1916); Mrs Dibby in The Five Dollar Bill (1917); Mary Elizabeth in The Lighted Lamp (1917); a French peasant girl in Hearts of the World (1918);[7][8] Amanda Garcia in With Hoops of Steel (1919),[9] and Pauline in The Trembling Hour (1919).

She played the nude Rudy in Bare Fists (1919), was Flozella in The Desert Flower and the Duchess in As Man Desires, both in 1925.

[10] Walthall married Luther Osgood Eldridge on 9 June 1926, in Orange, California, at which time she retired from acting.