Beginning her career as a radio performer at the age of seven, Garrett is best known for her seven years on Fred Waring's Pleasure Time radio show during the 1940s, as well as for her recurring television and film roles; as nosy neighbor Mrs. Florence Fowler on Nanny and the Professor (1970–1971), school secretary Miss Hogarth on Room 222 (1972–1973), as Mary Gruber in the Benji series of motion pictures beginning in 1974, and as a commercial spokesperson for Purina Cat Chow cat food.

[1] At the age of seventeen, Garrett was a regular on Fred Waring's national radio show "Pleasure Time" as a comic singer from 1938 to 1945.

[4] In the late 1960s, Garrett provided cartoon voiceovers for a number of Hanna-Barbera projects, including The Banana Splits Adventure Hour.

A small part as the mayor's wife in a 1969 Elvis Presley movie, The Trouble with Girls, reportedly led to a lifelong friendship with the singer.

A post-production trick involving the controlled forward motion and reversal of the film had Garrett dancing the "chow-chow-chow" with a cat in a good-humored parody of the cha-cha-cha.