In 1918, when Straight was four years old, her father died in France of influenza during the great epidemic while serving with the United States Army during World War I.

Most of her theater work was in the classics, including Twelfth Night (1941), Macbeth (1948) and The Crucible (1953), for which she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.

[3] Straight was active in the early days of television, appearing in anthology series such as Armstrong Circle Theatre, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Kraft Television Theatre, Studio One, Suspense, The United States Steel Hour, Playhouse 90, and dramatic series such as Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, The Defenders, Route 66, Mission: Impossible and St.

Straight worked infrequently in film and is perhaps remembered best for her role as a devastated wife confronting husband William Holden's infidelity in Network (1976).

Despite her character only appearing briefly onscreen, Straight was highly praised for her performance, earning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Together the couple had one child:[6] In 1948, while starring in the Broadway production of The Heiress,[8] an adaptation of Henry James's Washington Square, she met Peter Cookson.

[1] Together, Straight and Cookson had two children:[1] In 1952, her 7-year-old son, Willard, from her first marriage, accidentally drowned in a pond on their farm in Armonk while playing in a small rowboat tied to the dock.

[7] The boy's father, Dolivet, who was living in Paris at the time, was refused a visa and, therefore, unable to fly to the United States to attend the funeral because of his alleged pro-communist activities, which he denied.