She is perhaps best known for her performances in Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments (1956) and in Elvis Presley's film debut, Love Me Tender (1956), as well as for the risqué (for the time) snake dance scene in The Indian Tomb (1959).

Paget was born in Denver, Colorado, one of five children of Margaret Allen (née Gibson), a former actress (one source says "ex-burlesque queen"[1]) and Frank Henry Griffin, a painter.

Three of Paget's siblings, Marcia (Teala Loring), Leslie (Lisa Gaye), and Frank (Ruell Shayne), entered show business.

[4] Paget had her first professional job at age 8,[4] and acquired some stage experience at 13 when she acted in a 1946 production of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor.

During those same years, she read parts in four episodes broadcast performing various recently released and upcoming theatrical feature movies on the ''Lux Radio Theatre'' program, sharing the microphone with such actors as Burt Lancaster, Tyrone Power, Cesar Romero, Ronald Colman, and Robert Stack.

Fox finally gave Paget top billing with the swashbuckler and historical fiction epic, Princess of the Nile (1954), co-starring Jeffrey Hunter.

However, during the year after Princess of the Nile was released, the fan mail Paget received at 20th Century-Fox studios was topped only by that for Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable.

At MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) , when Anne Bancroft was injured during filming The Last Hunt (1956), that studio borrowed Paget to substitute and play her role, another Native American.

Paramount Pictures borrowed her from 20th Century Fox for the part of Lilia, the water girl, in Cecil B. DeMille's (1881-1959), biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1956), her most successful film.

A talented dancer and singer, Paget also had a successful occasional nightclub act at the famous Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

[7] In 1958, she traveled to Germany to headline the cast of Fritz Lang's two-film adventure saga, The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb (1959), a role that recalled her character in Princess of the Nile.

In 1959, Paget appeared as Lela Russell in the episode "The Unwilling" of the NBC Western television seriesRiverboat, (1959-1961), starring Darren McGavin.

In the story line, Dan Simpson, played by Eddie Albert, attempts to open a general store despite a raid from pirates who stole $20,000 in merchandise.

That same year, she had played an author, Agnes St. John, the only surviving witness to a brutal stagecoach robbery in another CBS Western, Johnny Ringo, starring Don Durant in the title role.