[2] She made her stage debut at the age of 17 as a chorus girl in the farce The Rogers Brothers at Harvard, but was fired shortly thereafter.

[4][5] She won other small roles on the stage before being discovered by an illustrator, Harrison Fisher who called her "the purest American beauty."

[2][4] A well-known stage star, Frederick was already in her 30s when she made her film debut in 1915 as Donna Roma in The Eternal City.

[4] Frederick was able to make a successful transition to "talkies" in 1929, and was cast as Joan Crawford's mother in This Modern Age (1931).

She would continue the remainder of her career appearing in films and also touring in stage productions in the United States, Europe and Australia.

[12][13] Frederick married her fourth husband, millionaire hotel and Interstate News Company owner Hugh Chisholm Leighton on April 20, 1930, in New York City.

[9][17] Frederick's fifth marriage, in January 1934, was to an ailing United States Army colonel, Joseph A. Marmon, commander of the 16th Infantry Regiment.

[22][5][21] According to her wishes, a private funeral was held on September 23, 1938, in Hollywood,[23] after which she was buried at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.