[5][6] She was considered a minor talent in the film industry, but her curvaceous figure nevertheless resulted in the nickname given her of the "American Beauty".

[8] She was featured in a number of silent films, including The Squaw Man (1918), Mr. Fix-It (1918), Passion's Playground (1920) and The Infidel (1922).

MacDonald had a public feud with her sister[citation needed], fellow actress Mary MacLaren, nine years her junior.

While working as a model in New York City, Katherine met her first husband, the well-known artist and writer Malcolm Atherton Strauss.

[7] In 1928 she married Christian Rasmus Holmes (1898-1944), an heir to the Fleischmann's yeast company, but that marriage ended in a sensational divorce suit in 1931, one widely covered in the press.

[12][7] Her statistics list her height as 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) with a weight of 130 pounds (59 kg), with brown hair and blue eyes.