[2] Time magazine reported that the actress, whose first name was an homage to her maternal grandmother from Nova Scotia, opted to keep her birth name, which she considered far less ridiculous than "Myrna Loy" or "Greta Garbo".

She appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), in which she plays a girl abducted by Peter Lorre's character, following this with her lead performance as Lady Jane Grey in Tudor Rose (1936).

That year David O. Selznick wanted Pilbeam for the lead in Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), and thought she could be an international film star.

However, her agent was worried about the length of a five-year contract; meanwhile, Hitchcock, whose outlook on the film was not the same as Selznick's, auditioned hundreds of others over many months, at last giving the role to Joan Fontaine.

She remained working on stage for a short while longer, appearing at the Duchess Theatre in Toni Block's play Flowers for the Living in February 1950.