[1] Kate was born at sea off the coast of Mazatlan, Mexico, to William Hooper and Mary Caldwell.
[2] Her family was financially well-off, and she attended Stanford University, where she studied English.
[2] After graduation, she taught at San Bernardino High School before marrying engineer Charles Corbaley.
[2][4] She wrote a string of films through the 1920s, and published a book on screenwriting called Selling Manuscripts in the Photoplay Market.
She eventually became a consultant at the Palmer Photoplay Institute, and worked as a development executive, evaluating scripts and making them more commercial.