She reached the height of her success at the age of 12 in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), winning an Academy Juvenile Award largely for this performance.

[citation needed] In 1949, Garner starred in Peg O' My Heart at the Famous Artists Playhouse in Fayetteville, New York.

[9] Garner headlined the national tour of the William Inge hit Broadway play Bus Stop beginning in 1955.

[citation needed] Garner's Broadway credits include Home Is the Hero, First Lady, The Royal Family, and The Man.

In 1960 and again in 1962, Garner was cast in the episodes "Once Around the Circuit" and "Build My Gallows Low", respectively, on the ABC series Adventures in Paradise, with Gardner McKay.

Garner appeared as Edie Brewer in the 1961 Naked City episode "Button in the Haystack," alongside Albert Salmi, to whom she was married at the time, and in which the couple played husband and wife onscreen.

During the early 1960s, Garner also appeared in one episode each of Bonanza ("The Rival") and Combat!, both under director Robert Altman (see next section).

[citation needed] In 1984, at age 52, Garner died from pancreatic cancer in the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Los Angeles.