She told a Boston Globe reporter in 1946 that she first became interested in acting at age fourteen after seeing Janet Gaynor in A Star Is Born.

Although a screen test revealed her thick Southern accent, Goldwyn was impressed with her appearance and put her under contract.

He sent her for acting and diction lessons and had her cast in local plays, including a Pasadena Playhouse dramatization of Little Women.

Her first major film role was in 1946's The Best Years of Our Lives,[5] playing Wilma Cameron, the high-school sweetheart of Navy veteran Homer Parrish.

Homer was played by real-life World War II veteran and double amputee Harold Russell.

She appeared as Barbara Waggoman, the love interest of James Stewart's character in the western The Man from Laramie (1955).