By 1929, her career began to wane due to her rumored reputation for being temperamental[4] and her difficulty transitioning to sound films.

In 1945, she began working at the Sunshine Mission, a home for impoverished women located in the skidrow section of Los Angeles.

[6] Her father Harry Robinson Borden (1880–1907) died when she was a baby and she was raised by her mother Cecelia "Sibbie" Shields (1884–1959)[7] in Norfolk, Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland, where she attended Catholic boarding schools.

[9] Borden began her career as one of the Sennett Bathing Beauties in 1922 and was soon appearing as a vamp in Hal Roach comedy shorts.

She had starring roles in eleven films at Fox, including 3 Bad Men and Fig Leaves, both of which costarred her then-boyfriend George O'Brien.

[11] During this time she worked with some directors who would go on to achieve major fame, including John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Leo McCarey.

But Borden had trouble with the new look, losing her identity; she couldn't find her audience and this confused her waning public.

[15] She made few movies in the early 1930s and her once promising career stalled, producing but one picture in 1932 (The Divorce Racket), and three in 1933 (Leave it to Me, Hotel Variety, and The Mild West).

Her last screen credit came in the 1934 film Chloe, Love Is Calling You, where she played a woman kidnapped at birth and raised as a child of mixed race.

"[16] A pre-code movie made under Will Hays, it had little box office success and in some states (mostly southern) it was banned at the time of its release.

[18][19][20] Her Army career ended in 1944, with an honorable discharge after she was hospitalized in Walter Reed Medical Center with a severe foot injury.

[23] The marriage was rocky from the start,[24] and the couple separated in early 1932 after news of scandal broke that she was involved in a love triangle.