Hilda Laura Hess was born in Sierra Mojada, Mexico, to Louis Hess (a Bavarian Jewish merchant involved in mining) and Mollie Sanders; the family later spent time in El Paso.
[1] She graduated from El Paso High School and ended up working as a newspaper reporter for several years.
[2] By the 1920s, she had settled in Los Angeles, where she gained employment as a script reader in Fox's scenario department before working her way into a writing role.
The pair divorced in 1949 after she eloped to Paris with writer[6] George Marton.
She lived at the Sierra Towers and died in Los Angeles on March 5, 1992, aged 86, and was interred in Hillside Memorial Park.