Biografia

Although she spoke with an English accent, she was not British; she was actually from Astoria, New York. She said that she cultivated that accent at the beginning of her career in order to set her apart from all the other tall blondes she would be competing with for roles. The tactic worked so well that producers who hired "the blonde with the British accent" expected to hear a blonde with a British accent on the screen, so she was forced to use the accent whenever she worked, and wound up using it all the time, even off screen.

Producers tended to think of her as too intelligent and self-possessed to be sexy, so she never got the lead and seldom got the man. However, she displayed a real flair for comedy and appeared with Bob Hope (Monsieur Beaucaire (1946)) and Red Skelton (As Loucuras de Mr. Jones (1948)) and, of course, was a regular as Lou Costello's semi-girlfriend on The Abbott and Costello Show (1952). Some other notable pictures in which she was cast include Núpcias de Escândalo (1940), A Mulher que não Sabia Amar (1944), Jane Eyre (1943), Quando Desceram as Trevas (1944), O Seu Milagre de Amor (1945) and O Homem que Sabia Demais (1956).

She was appearing in television commercials long before it was fashionable (and profitable) for movie stars to do, namely promoting the Foodarama Refrigerator by Kelvinator in the mid-1950s. During this time, Cinerama was being made famous in movie theaters and everything from laundramats to trailer parks became "launderama" and trailerama" in hitching their wagon to the Cinerama star.

Awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6311 Hollywood Blvd. on 2/8/60.

Prior to her acting career, she worked as a photographer's model.