Jeanne was born in Covington, Kentucky, to Charles Spencer and Catherine Spellbrink.
By the early 1920s, she was living in Hollywood and working as a film cutter, although she didn't receive credits on her earliest projects.
She also worked as an assistant director in those early days (notably on 1920's The Devil's Pass Key).
[citation needed] She continued editing after Frank's death and also took up writing plays.
She sold her play Senate Page Boys (co-written with Albert Benham) in 1939 and helped write the adaptation that became 1941's Adventure in Washington.