Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, her parents brought her to Southern California at an early age, where around 1940 she started work as a photographic model.

Brooks was born in Lincoln, Nebraska on July 13, 1922, the daughter of Paul and Fern Clark Gettman.

She spent much of her childhood with her paternal grandparents who ran a hotel in Crofton, and attended high school in Omaha.

She wed her first husband, actor Donald Anthony Shay, on January 6, 1945, in Beverly Hills, California.

[4] Brooks died on July 1, 2011, at the age of 88 in Sherman Oaks, California and was buried at the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.