Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, White debuted in her family's circus show at age 2, acting as a "living doll" who stood in place until she got a cue to begin cooing and wriggling.

At the age of 10, she was dancing in vaudeville as part of The White Sisters, leading to jobs with the Ziegfeld Follies and Earl Carroll revue, then moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s.

This job led to a number of short films at Pathé Exchange (later RKO Pictures), where she played leading lady to familiar comics, such as Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol.

White's most famous role arrived in Tell Your Children (1936), better known today as Reefer Madness, a low-budget exploitation film to warn audiences of the dangers of marijuana.

She continued to make appearances in B-movies such as the film series with The Bowery Boys, and near the end of the war, she contracted a crippling disease while in the Aleutian Islands.