Appleby gained early acting experience as an understudy and a chorus member in plays in New York City.

[1] A newspaper article reported that Appleby "came to New York fresh from winning a Maine beauty contest.

She worked with Columbia comics Andy Clyde, El Brendel, and Hugh Herbert, and she had an uncredited part in John Ford's Stagecoach.

In the film, Appleby gets clobbered by the Stooges when a facial "mud pack" made of concrete dries on her face.

One of her later screen roles was a one-line bit (playing a college student at age 35) in the 1941 Jane Withers feature Small Town Deb.