Hale rose to film stardom in 1925 under the auspices of directors Josef von Sternberg in The Salvation Hunters and Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush.

Her father, preoccupied with his duties as a telephone company operations manager, provided the family with a middle-class income; her mother, an avid homemaker, was solely responsible for raising the girls.

In Hale’s 1995 posthumously published memoir Charlie Chaplin: Intimate Close-Ups, her upbringing appears fraught with sibling rivalries, and by her own account, was not a nurturing or affectionate home environment.

In June 1918, her yearbook reports that Hale, in performing the role of “Ralph Rickshaw” in the Gilbert and Sullivan’s light opera H. M. S. Pinafore, had “made her justly famous” on campus.

The event was attended by heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, as well as United States Attorney General Hubert Work of the Warren G. Harding administration, personally crowned “Miss Chicago.” Hale was presented with a $2500 cash prize and received offers to appear in films.

[18] In Hollywood, Hale’s career was advanced when she was selected, based purely on her poise and physical beauty, by a panel of celebrity judges to provide a screen test supervised by actor Frank Mayo.

Like many of her female contemporaries in Hollywood, Hale’s attractive physique garnered her bit parts as a “bathing beauty” in a number of films, including The Temple of Venus (1923).

[20] Approximately seven minutes of test footage of Hale in the role survives; this is included in the DVD release of the film, and excerpts appear in Unknown Chaplin.

The editor's introduction to Hale's memoir also reveals that she was Chaplin's original choice for the female lead in his film The Circus, a role eventually played by Merna Kennedy.

[21] While working as an extra on By Divine Right (1924), Hale met Joseph “Jo” Sternberg who was serving as assistant director on the picture.

At Knight’s request, Kono agreed to arrange a private viewing for Chaplin and his colleague at United Artists, Douglas Fairbanks.

Chaplin managed to lift her contract from Fairbanks - Hale was immediately given screen tests and enlisted for the part opposite him in The Gold Rush.