[1] Rice's acting career began during junior high student in Montclair, when she was cast in her first Broadway production, later attending New York's Professional Children's School.
[2] Her Broadway credits included the 1943 production of The Naked Genius, a play written by Gypsy Rose Lee, as well as Dear Ruth and Junior Miss.
[2][4] Other radio credits included Ma Perkins (as Laura),[5] The Right to Happiness (as Susan Wakefield),[6] CBS Radio Mystery Theater, NBC Playhouse, Calvacade of America, Playhouse 90, When a Girl Marries (as Kathy),[7] My True Story, Westinghouse Studio One, Young Doctor Malone (as Jill),[3] and Let's Pretend.
[1] The show, which aired from 1949 to 1957, was originally broadcast live from a television studio located above the Oyster Bar in Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal.
[1] Rice opened each episode by showing and narrating a family photo album with the television audience, always ending the scene with the phrase, "But most of all, I remember...
[1] Rice described the cast, which spent five days a week working together, as very close, explaining to the New York Times that she called Judson Laire "Papa" until he died in 1979.
In 1985, Rice donated her kinescopes to the Museum of Broadcasting, now called the Paley Center for Media, for exhibition of surviving Mama episodes.
[2] Rice was a longtime resident of New Canaan, Connecticut, before moving to nearby Stamford,[2] where she died from a heart attack on August 14, 2012, aged 87.