After attending Los Angeles Junior College for one year, Billingsley traveled to Broadway, when "Straw Hat", a revue in which she was appearing, attracted enough attention to send it to New York City. When the show closed after five days, she took an apartment on 57th Street and went to work as a $60-a-week fashion model. In 1941, she married Glenn Billingsley, Sr. She landed a contract with MGM Studios in 1945, and moved with her husband to Los Angeles the following year. That same year, Glenn Billingsley opened a restaurant there.