[3][6] There she modeled for Neiman Marcus and attended Ursuline Academy of Dallas, Highland Park High School, Hockaday Junior College, and later, Southern Methodist University (SMU).

She was billed third in Flaxy Martin (1949) with Virginia Mayo and Zachary Scott, then played a good girl in a Western with Joel McCrea, South of St Louis (1949).

[18] She relocated to New York City for several months to study acting until producer Hal B. Wallis called her back to appear in Scared Stiff (1953) starring the comedy duo of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

[22] Film roles included The Lone Gun (1954), a Western with George Montgomery; Pushover (1954), a thriller with Fred MacMurray and Kim Novak; and Private Hell 36 (1954) from director Don Siegel.

She had a leading part in Battle Cry (1955), playing a married woman who has an affair with a young soldier (Tab Hunter) during World War II, a box-office hit.

At Warner Bros., Malone made a Western with Randolph Scott, Tall Man Riding (1955), then was cast as Liberace's love interest in the unsuccessful film Sincerely Yours (1955).

She then returned to Westerns: At Gunpoint (1955), with MacMurray; Tension at Table Rock (1956), with Richard Egan; and Pillars of the Sky (1956) with Jeff Chandler.

[22] Malone transformed herself into a platinum blonde and shed her "good girl" image when she co-starred with Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, and Robert Stack in director Douglas Sirk's drama Written on the Wind (1956).

[25] As a result, she was offered more substantial roles in such films as Man of a Thousand Faces (1957), a biopic of Lon Chaney with James Cagney and Tip on a Dead Jockey (1957) with Robert Taylor.

Quantez (1957) was another "girl in a Western" part, supporting Fred MacMurray, but The Tarnished Angels (1957) reunited her successfully with Hudson, Sirk, Stack, and producer Albert Zugsmith.

[26] Malone appeared in Warlock (1959), but went back to guest starring on such television programs as Cimarron City ("A Respectable Girl", 1958) and Alcoa Theatre ("The Last Flight Out", 1960).

[27] However, she was working more and more in television: Route 66 ("Fly Away Home", 1961), Checkmate ("The Heat of Passion", 1961), Death Valley Days ("The Watch", 1961), The Dick Powell Theatre ("Open Season", 1961), Dr Kildare ("The Administrator", 1962), General Electric Theatre ("Little White Lie", 1961, "Somebody Please Help Me", 1962), The Untouchables with Stack ("The Floyd Gibbons Story", 1962), and The Greatest Show on Earth ("Where the Wire Ends", 1963).

[22] From 1964–1968, she played the lead role of Constance MacKenzie on the ABC primetime serial Peyton Place except for a brief stretch where she was absent due to surgery.

[22] She was seen on television in The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries ("The House on Possessed Hill" 1978), Flying High ("A Hairy Yak Plays Musical Chairs Eagerly" 1978), Vega$ ("Love, Laugh and Die" 1978), and the TV movie Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold (1978).

[22] Malone was in the Canadian soap opera High Hopes (1978) and had supporting parts in Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (1979), Winter Kills (1979), and The Day Time Ended (1980), and the miniseries Condominium (1980).

[31] The producers of Dallas approached her to step into the role of Miss Ellie Ewing when Barbara Bel Geddes vacated the part in 1984 due to illness, but Malone declined.

Her later appearances included The Littlest Hobo ("Guardian Angel" 1982), Matt Houston ("Shark Bait" 1983), The Being (1983), Peyton Place: The Next Generation (1985), and Rest in Pieces (1987).

[3][35] Malone then married New York businessman and broker Robert Tomarkin on April 3, 1969, at the Silver Bells Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

[3] Malone married Dallas motel chain executive Charles Huston Bell on October 2, 1971, and they divorced after three years.