In a career that spanned more than 50 years, she portrayed acerbic maids, secretaries, teachers, busybodies, nurses, and battle-axe neighbors and relatives, almost invariably to comic effect.

[7] Freeman attended the University of California at Los Angeles, majored in music to be a classical pianist, "got in a play and got a laugh".

"[7] - Kathleen FreemanLater in life she appeared in national tours of Deathtrap, Annie (as Miss Hannigan) and Woman of the Year with Lauren Bacall.

She appeared in several episodes of Wagon Train, Funny Face (as Kate Harwell), I Dream of Jeannie (as a grouchy supervisor in a fantasy preview of Major Nelson's future, and later as a hillbilly), the short-lived prehistoric sitcom It's About Time (as Mrs. Boss), and as a nurse in Love, American Style.

In her final episode of As Told by Ginger, "No Hope for Courtney", Freeman's character Mrs. Gordon retires from her teaching job.

For a short time in the early 1950s, Freeman was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player, appearing mostly in small and uncredited bit parts.

Her most notable early role was an uncredited part in the 1952 MGM musical Singin' in the Rain as Jean Hagen's diction coach Phoebe Dinsmore.

Her other film roles included appearances in The Missouri Traveler (1958), The Fly (1958), the Western spoofs Support Your Local Sheriff!

She also played a foul-mouthed apartment building manager in Dragnet (1987), a teacher in Hocus Pocus (1993), and a gangster mother in Naked Gun 33+1⁄3: The Final Insult (1994).

In the 1973 film The Sting, Freeman appeared in a family photo for Kid Twist’s character (played by Harold Gould) in the Western Union office scene.