Born in Poland, she was adopted by an American couple and began to perform in theater productions in the 1910s.

[3][4][5] By age 14, Westbay was considered talented at singing and piano playing, and had written for magazines, including Munsey's.

[6] In 1916, she started acting in stage productions,[7] playing the part of the maid in His Majesty Bunker Bean.

[16] Westbay and Scarborough wrote the play The Heaven Tappers, which premiered in 1926 at the San Francisco Columbia theatre.

[12] Westbay acted in other theatrical plays, including as Katchen in Forbidden,[18] as The Princess in the first showing of Her Friend the King,[19] as Tecla in Bad Babies,[20] and in The Awful Truth.