Popular with audiences, she was often praised by critics for her appearance and style rather than for her talent, but in 1929, she achieved a significant success in the play Fifty Million Frenchmen.

She introduced and popularized the Cole Porter song "You Do Something to Me", and the success of the role led her back to Hollywood, where she performed regularly in comedy films from the early 1930s.

[citation needed] She played supporting roles opposite such performers as Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert, Joan Blondell, and Kay Francis, but occasionally played starring roles, in films such as Golden Harvest (1933) and Easy to Love (1934).

She played secretary Della Street to Warren William's Perry Mason in The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935).

One of her performances was as the bored wife of a wealthy businessman in the drama The Petrified Forest (1936), starring Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart.