Following success in Chicago and New York City, Totter was signed to a seven-year film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).

Due to Totter's limited skill as a singer, MGM used Harriet Lee as her voice double in the 1945 film Dangerous Partners.

Later in 1958, Totter played boarding house owner Beth Purcell in another NBC Western series, Cimarron City.

The episodes were supposed to rotate among star George Montgomery as the mayor, John Smith as blacksmith/deputy sheriff Lane Temple, and Totter, but when the writers failed to feature her character, she left the series.

From 1962 to 1963, she starred as homemaker Alice MacRoberts in the ABC situation comedy Our Man Higgins, with Stanley Holloway, Frank Maxwell, and Ricky Kelman.

In 1964, she made a guest appearance on CBS's Perry Mason as defendant Reba Burgess in the title role of "The Case of the Reckless Rockhound".

Her last acting role was as a nun, Sister Paul, in a 1987 episode ("Old Habits Die Hard") of CBS's Murder, She Wrote, with Angela Lansbury.