Actress. A versatile performer, she played a wide variety of roles, mostly in Class B films during her five-decade career. The daughter of a trade paper editor, she began her career by appearing on the stock stage in her teens and debuted on Broadway in 1922 as an ensemble actress in "The Bunch and Judy," starring Fred Astaire. She continued working on Broadway during the 1920s and 1930s with notable performances in "The Green Beetle," "Baby Mine," "June Moon," "Little Women," "Blessed Event," and "Stage Door." Her performance in "Stage Door" led to a contract with RKO Studios and she was supposed to reprise her role in the film version, but the part was split into two characters and played by Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. She went on to appear in such films as "Border Cafe" (1937), "The Sisters" (1938), "South of Suez" (1940), "Saturday's Children" (1940), "The Nurse's Secret" (1941), "The Maltese Falcon (1941, in the role of Girl Friday 'Effie Perine' to Humphrey Bogart's character 'Sam Spade'), "Dangerously They Live" (1941), "Now, Voyager" (1942), "Gambler's Choice" (1944), "Mrs. Parkington" (1944), "Mildred Pierce" (1945), Wake Up and Dream' (1946), "Caged" (1950), "The Lawless" (1950), "Tomorrow is Another Day" (1951), "There's No Business Like Show Business" (1954), "Vertigo" (1958), "Auntie Mame" (1958), "Pillow Talk" (1959), "Summer and Smoke" (1961), and "7 Faces of Dr. Lao" (1964). Her difficulties in establishing a career as a leading actress were often attributed to a long-standing feud that she had with gossip columnist Louella Parsons. Her husband, Tom Wood, a journalist and author of "The Lighter Side of Billy Wilder," once wrote a magazine article which was very critical of Parsons. Her final film role was a reprise of her 'Effie Perine' character in a reworking of the Sam Spade story "The Black Bird" (1975). In television, she appeared in the CBS situation comedy "Topper" that aired from 1953 until 1955. She made several appearances as the mother of Ida Lupino in the CBS sitcom "Mr. Adams and Eve" (1957 until 1958). In 1963 she appeared as 'Aunt Wilma Howard' in the episode "Skeleton in the Closet" of the CBS sitcom "The Real McCoys" and in 1965 she appeared as 'Mrs. Ashton Durham' in the episode "It's a Dog's World" of the NBC sitcom "Hazel." She also turned in a hilarious voice performance as 'Mrs. Frumpington' in an episode of the CBS animated series "The Alvin Show." She died from a heart seizure at the age of 80, one day short of the 81st birthday. However, it was not until after her death that it was discovered that she was actually 10 years older than she had led everyone to believe.