最初在歌舞剧中扮演女丑角和演唱，又和哥哥、妹妹在夜总会中表演。1935年进入百老汇加入齐格飞歌舞团，参加演出。1936年登上大银幕，在歌舞片导演巴斯比·伯克利的《蔷薇处处开》里演员。曾任全国广播公司的广播节目演出达12年，1946年5月当选最幽默的广播明星。1976年，在她退隐多年去从事电视演出后，又重新登上大银幕，在《炮弹飞车》中演出。
A rather wanderlust fellow before he latched onto acting, Denver Pyle--who made a career of playing drawling, somewhat slow Southern types--was actually born in Colorado in 1920, to a farming family. He attended a university for a time but dropped out to become a drummer. When that didn't pan out he drifted from job to job, doing everything from working the oil fields in Oklahoma to the shrimp boats in Texas. In 1940 he moseyed off to Los Angeles and briefly found employment as a (somewhat unlikely) NBC page. That particular career was interrupted by World War II, and Pyle enlisted in the navy. Wounded in the battle of Guadalcanal, he received a medical discharge in 1943.
