During her peak years in the 1930s, notable roles for Hudson included Richard Cromwell’s love interest in the Will Rogers showcase Life Begins at 40 (1935), the daughter of carnival barker W.C. Fields in Poppy (1936), and Claudette Colbert’s adult daughter in Imitation of Life (1934).

She played Sally Glynn, the fallen ingenue to whom Mae West imparts the immortal wisdom "When women go wrong, men go right after them!"

In the 1954–1955 television season, Hudson co-starred with Gil Stratton and Eddie Mayehoff in the sitcom That's My Boy,[5] based on a 1951 Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin film of the same name.

In 1972, Hudson was found dead in her home at the Palm Desert Country Club.

A business associate with whom she had been working in real estate discovered her body sprawled on the bathroom floor.