A graduate of the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Gilbert's role as Alice in the 1931 film
Alice in Wonderland was her first major role. The film was made by
Metropolitan Studios, an independent film company from
Fort Lee, New Jersey. They made it for educational purposes in readiness for the 100th anniversary of
Lewis Carroll's birth the following year Gilbert's success in
Alice in Wonderland gained her national recognition and this led to her first
Broadway role in
Girls in Uniform in 1932, a play inspired by the German film
Mädchen in Uniform, which was in turn based upon the
Christa Winsloe novel and play. Her role as Alice also got Gilbert noticed by
Eugene O'Neill who cast her in the role of Muriel in the
Theatre Guild production of
Ah, Wilderness!, which also starred
George M. Cohan. She was also a member of the
Group Theatre for two years, and in 1946 O'Neill cast her as Pearl in his play
The Iceman Cometh. The latter series was notable in that it was a prime time show in which each episode was only five minutes long. Gilbert continued to work well into the 1950s. From 1953 to 1955, she played Max, the lovesick, scatterbrained secretary, in ten episodes of
The Milton Berle Show. Her often repeated line in the show, "Let's not fight this, Mil-l-ton, it's bigger than both of us," became her catchphrase However, midway through her tenure on the show, she was fired for becoming pregnant. Nevertheless, the matter was ultimately resolved by arbitration and she returned to the program after the birth of her daughter. Gilbert's career reached its zenith in the 1950s and thereafter began to slow down. However, a year before her death, she made one last comeback in a cameo as Mrs. Landesman in the film
Me, Myself and I in 1992. ==Death==