Emerging from a vaudeville background in Saginaw, Michigan, she studied at Los Angeles’ Immaculate Heart Convent School before training with Daniel Frohman and later Richard Boleslawski at New York’s American Laboratory Theatre in the early 1920s. Her New York stage debut came in 1928 as the title character in Martine, and she soon joined the pioneering Group Theatre, where her portrayal of the ch…
