[5] Watkins gained additional acting experience during a season with the Hartman stock theater company in Columbus, Ohio, after which the Shubert Organization gave her the lead in its Chicago production of Trapped.

[3] Aged 17, she performed in the Tom Cushing comedy The Devil In The Cheese with Fredric March at the Charles Hopkins Theater in New York City.

She appeared in a revival of The Wild Duck in November 1928, starred in the George S. Kaufman/Ring Lardner comedy June Moon in 1929, and co-starred with Ralph Morgan in Sweet Stranger in 1930.

Produced by the Fox Film Company, Watkins played Marilyn Parker, a naive wife caught up in a love triangle.

[citation needed] Watkins appeared in numerous television broadcasts beginning in 1950 with an episode of The Billy Rose Show.