生于洛杉矶，就读于芝加哥大学。1929年初登银幕，在一些影片中担任临时演员，1930年与莫里斯．希佛莱一起主演了影片《巴黎一侍者》，并在好莱坞三十年代初的影片中扮演女主角和第二主角。
They didn't come packaged any sweeter and lovelier than Anne Shirley, a gentle and gracious 1930s teen film actress who didn't quite reach the zenith of front-rank stardom and retired all too soon at age 26. On film as a toddler, she went through a small revolving door of marquee names before legally settling (at age 16) on the name Anne Shirley, the name of her schoolgirl heroine in Anne's most famous film of all -- Anne of Green Gables (1934).
