[1] Her best-known single-act performance was in The Clod, a stage production in which she played an uneducated woman who lived on a farm during the American Civil War.

[citation needed] The future actress took part in recitations in the Catholic school she attended in Chicago, where her fellow students enjoyed her talent as a mimic.

[5] She had a role in His Grace de Grammont, a romantic comedy by Clyde Fitch which came to the Park Theatre in Boston in September 1905.

[6] Padden appeared again with Skinner in a four-act play produced by Charles Frohman, The Honor of the Family, by Émile Fabre, which was presented in New Rochelle, New York in September 1907.

In 1938, she played "Ma" Thayer in MGM's Rich Man, Poor Girl, directed by Reinhold Schünzel and starring Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, and Lana Turner.

In 1941, she played wealthy spinster Aunt Cassandra ("Cassie") Hildegarde Denham in Murder by Invitation, directed by Phil Rosen and starring Wallace Ford and Marian Marsh.