Initially their for starring opposite John Wayne in the 1937 movie Born to the West, she went on to appear in more than fifty other films of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, including Cry 'Havoc' (1943); The Valley of Decision (1945); and Diplomatic Passport (1954).
After attending a performing arts high school, she worked as a fashion model and singer before being signed to Paramount Pictures in the early 1930s and making her screen acting debut in the 1935 feature The Virginia Judge.
She was one of the many Hollywood stars blacklisted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities during the Communist scare of the 1950s.
The daughter of Earl and Minabel Hunt, she spent her youth in Chicago, Illinois. After divorcing film director Jerry Hopper, she began her four-decade marriage to Robert Presnell, Jr.
She co-starred with James Craig and Margaret O'Brien in the 1943 movie Lost Angel.