In 1954, she won the Golden Globe Award for most promising female newcomer for her role in the 1953 American science-fiction film It Came from Outer Space.

[1] Later in her career, Rush became a regular performer in the television series Peyton Place, and appeared in TV movies, miniseries, and a variety of other programs, including the soap opera All My Children and the family drama 7th Heaven, as well as starring in films such as The Young Philadelphians, The Young Lions, Robin and the 7 Hoods, and Hombre.

In 1953, she starred in the sci-fi thriller It Came From Outer Space, for which she won the 1954 Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer – Female" for her performance.

She was occasionally cast as a villainess or femme fatale, such as Marian Stevens in the Rat Pack's 1964 gangster musical Robin and the 7 Hoods.

In the 1967 Western drama Hombre, working with Paul Newman again, she played Audra Favor, the rich, younger, and condescending wife of a thief – and ends up being taken hostage and tied to a stake.

In 1964, she was billed as "Special Guest Star" for the episode, "The Form of Things Unknown", in the popular 1960s sci-fi series on ABC, The Outer Limits (1963–1965).

Rush soon became a regular in TV movies, miniseries, and dramas such as Peyton Place and the daytime soap opera All My Children.

[10] In 1976, Rush played the role of Ann Sommers/Chris Stewart, the mother of female sci-fi action character Jaime Sommers in The Bionic Woman.

In 1984 Rush returned to the theatre and brought her one-woman play, A Woman of Independent Means, to Broadway in New York City.

She made her final film appearance in 2017 in a "horror short" titled Bleeding Hearts: The Arteries of Glenda Bryant.

[citation needed] Since 1997 Rush had lived in the Harold Lloyd Estate in Beverly Hills, California, and was a neighbor of David Geffen.