[5] She appeared in eight other films in the 1940s, including the roles of Rosa in the spy thriller, The Conspirators, Siu-Mei in Pearl S. Buck's China Sky, Toni Rosseau in Swamp Fire, Carmelita Mendoza in Jewels of Brandenburg, Narana in Arctic Manhunt, and Watona in Apache Chief.

In 1955–1956, she was cast as Mrs. Cora McGill in "Paper Gunman" and as Annie Brayer in "The Salt War" of another western anthology series, Frontier, on NBC.

Thurston had other guest roles in the 1950s on such series as Sky King, Soldiers of Fortune, The Rough Riders, 26 Men, Behind Closed Doors, Highway Patrol, Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse, and The Man and the Challenge.

She was cast twice on the Richard Boone series, Have Gun - Will Travel, and once on CBS's Rawhide as Waneea in the 1959 episode, "Incident of the Power and the Plow".

Emma Clanton in the series had a romantic interest in Marshal Earp, and in the season in which she appeared, so did hotel owner Nellie Cashman, played by Randy Stuart.

Other than The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, her last television role was as Jenny Larson in the episode "Murder Plays it Cool" in the syndicated legal drama series, Lock-Up, starring Macdonald Carey.

Though Thayer escaped with bruises, cuts, and shock, a man asleep in an apartment largely destroyed by flames suffered critical burns.

By January 1960, although neither of them had initiated divorce proceedings, each spouse was otherwise engaged – Russo with actress Dolores Michaels and Thurston, with screenwriter Robert Creighton Williams.

However, her daughter, Amanda Thayer, has disputed this, insisting that she witnessed her mother in a Los Angeles hospital after she succumbed to heart failure and spent her last hours in a coma.