[1] After numerous uncredited film roles, Gilbert delivered a brief but memorable performance in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941).

Over the next decade, she appeared dozens of times in movies, radio and television, often in humorous supporting roles as "sizeable" but confident women.

In November 1952, a little-known writer named Harvey Narcisenfield testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that Gilbert was a Communist.

[4] Throughout her testimony, she made light of the proceedings and of HUAC counsel Frank Tavenner's questions, for example, joking about her weight, and saying she was invoking the Fifth Commandment as well as the Fifth Amendment.

On February 3, 1979, Jody Gilbert died from complications arising from an automobile accident that she had been involved in the previous autumn.