Cora Sue Collins was born in Beckley, West Virginia, and began her career in show business at a young age, encouraged by her ambitious mother. Despite being a popular child actress in the 1930s, she never posed a serious threat to Shirley Temple, and her success was largely due to her ability to cry on demand.
Cora's early career included a succession of small acting parts, with her first film being The Strange Case of Clara Deane in 1932. She was just five years old at the time, and her voice coach was Clark Gable's first wife, Josephine Dillon.
By 1934, Cora was earning a respectable $250 a week and had appeared in eleven films. That year, she was hand-picked by Greta Garbo to play the star's younger self in Queen Christina, and she developed a long-standing friendship with Garbo, as well as with Lucille Ball and other established stars.
One of Cora's notable performances was as the illegitimate daughter of Colleen Moore in The Scarlet Letter, and she also appeared in the crime drama Evelyn Prentice, which received a positive review from The New York Times. She later commanded a rare leading role as the juvenile delinquent daughter of a court judge in Youth on Trial.
However, Cora's career in show business was cut short when she was just 18 years old, after a small supporting part in Week-End at the Waldorf. The reason for her premature retirement was due to her refusal to comply with the casting couch, which was a common practice in 1930s and 40s Hollywood.
In a 2020 interview, Cora revealed that she had rebuffed the sexual advances of a screenwriter, who was 33 years her senior, and had previously regarded as both friend and mentor. She later confronted MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer, whose response was "nonchalant and dismissive".
After leaving the film industry, Cora studied architecture and lived the life of a socialite in Mexico, hosting lavish parties. She was married three times, respectively to Ivan Stauffer, James Morgan Cox, and Harry Nace, a Phoenix theatre owner. Cora reflected in 2014 that quitting show business was the best decision of her life, as it allowed her to enjoy anonymity and the luxury of being a housewife from Phoenix.
