[1] Stickney was born in Dickinson, North Dakota, but because of a medical condition, she was unable to go into bright places and spent most of her childhood indoors to protect her sensitive eyes.

[3] Stickney sang and danced as one of the four Southern Belles in vaudeville and began acting in summer stock companies including Atlanta's Forsyth Players in the early 1920s before she married Howard Lindsay.

[3] She was Liz, the mad scrubwoman, in the original nonmusical version of Chicago, and Mollie Molloy, who dives out of the pressroom window, in The Front Page.

With increasingly important roles, she moved on to Philip Goes Forth,[4] Another Language, On Borrowed Time, The Small Hours, To Be Continued[5] and The Honeys.

[citation needed] In 1940, Stickney received the Barter Theatre Award for "outstanding performance for an American player"[6] for her role as Vinnie in Life with Father, which had been written by her husband, Lindsay, who also co-starred.