[1][3][8] Attaway made her Broadway debut in 1936 in the Pulitzer Prize winning play, You Can't Take It with You.
[1] Attaway made her film debut by portraying Moll in The President's Lady (1953), opposite Susan Hayward and Charlton Heston.
[8][13] She went on to play a variety of characters in film such as Philomena in The Young Don't Cry (1957),[14] Serena in Porgy and Bess (1959), Edna in Conrack (1974) and Louise in Being There (1979).
[1][3] On November 10, 1953, Attaway was one of three people cited by the Coordinating Council For Negro Performers at a special benefit in Harlem.
[22] Attaway died on September 21, 1987, in New York Hospital of injuries resulting from a Manhattan apartment fire.