Years later, she said, "I lied about my age and got a job as a dealer – and made big money, much more than my husband, who was a shill.

Spain eschewed a college scholarship after attending high school in White Salmon, Washington.

The film marked the screen debut of Tina Louise and also starred Robert Ryan, Jack Lord, Buddy Hackett, Aldo Ray, and Vic Morrow.

Spain followed this success by playing Maureen Flannery in the film Al Capone (1959), and appeared in such films as The Beat Generation (1959), The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960), Hercules and the Conquest of Atlantis (1961), Black Gold (1962), Thunder Island (1963), Flight to Fury (1964), The Gentle Rain (1966), Welcome to Hard Times (1967), and The Todd Killings (1971).

Her final appearance as a film actress came in 1974, when she portrayed the wife of mobster Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) in The Godfather Part II (1974).