The World War II years of 1942–45 found Geraldine Stroock refining her craft at such traditional venues as the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Neighborhood Playhouse and summer stock.

Unlike her elder sister, Gloria Stroock, who has a long career as an actress in mostly small film and television roles under her real name, young Geraldine decided at this point to take the surname of "Brooks" professionally.

Her debut under the new stage name was also her first time in front of the cameras, as the studio's suspense drama, Cry Wolf, went into national release on August 19, 1947, although it was seen and reviewed in New York one month earlier.

Embraceable You, released in July 1948, had her second-billed to Dane Clark, who played a goodhearted, although criminally inclined, tough guy who falls in love with the victim of the hit-and-run car accident for which he was responsible.

Brooks, aged 24, was cast as Bennett's 17-year-old daughter, whose reckless affair with a seedy, older art dealer puts her mother on a collision course with a blackmailer with worse to come.

Released two months earlier, in October, but not seen in New York until April 1950, the production gave her third billing, behind Edmund Gwenn and Donald Crisp who, in this version of the classic story, Greyfriars Bobby, were once again typecast as elderly Scotsmen.

Playing the cemetery caretaker's daughter, she had the only female role of any importance, and was also given a couple of good dramatic scenes, but the focus was still firmly on the canine star.

Similar in tone, both are doom-laden melodramas depicting the tragic price women paid for descending into prostitution in the midst of the hunger, deprivation, and moral corruption prevailing in postwar Italy.

[4] The second title, Vulcano (later released in the U.S. as Volcano), had an Oscar-nominated (for 1937's The Life of Emile Zola) director, William Dieterle, and two top Italian stars, Anna Magnani and Rossano Brazzi, who were billed above her.

The adventurous shoot was primarily confined to the land and sea area around the eponymous volcanic isle of Vulcano as well as Lipari, off the coast of Mediterranean's largest island, Sicily.

Her other credits included Johnny Staccato, Have Gun - Will Travel, Adventures in Paradise, Perry Mason, Ironside, The Defenders, Dr. Kildare, Stoney Burke, Mr. Novak, Ben Casey, Get Smart, Gunsmoke (in the 1966 episode "Killer at Large"), The Outer Limits, Combat!

She played Carol Attley, a potential love interest for Hoss in "To Bloom for Thee" S8 E6 of Bonanza which aired 10/15/1966, as well as appearing in It Takes A Thief, Daniel Boone and Kung Fu (in the episode "Nine Lives").

She was nominated for the 1962 Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an actress in a Leading Role for her appearance in the episode, "Call Back Yesterday", with fellow guest costar David Hedison in the drama series Bus Stop.