Following her graduation in 1948 from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Institute of Technology (which later would merge with Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to form Carnegie Mellon University), Phyllis Love made her way to New York, where, in short order, Phyllis Love  would gain entry into the recently formed Actors Studio. Her small screen debut would come the following year in the Studio’s own, like-named, but short-lived, series; her Broadway and big screen bows, the year after that, as, respectively, Julie Harris’s understudy in the stage adaptation of Member of the Wedding, and, an uncredited performer in the film So Young So Bad. Throughout the 1950s she acted in Broadway productions and the occasional film. She won the Clarence Derwent Award in 1951 for her role in the stage play The Rose Tattoo. She played Mattie Birdwell in the film Friendly Persuasion. (1956).On television, she appeared principally in guest roles from 1950 until her retirement in the early 1970s. Among her roles were two guest appearances on Perry Mason, both times as the defendant. In 1962 she played Ellen Carter in “The Case of the Bogus Books”. The same year she played Mrs. Lucas in the 3rd season episode “Four O’Clock” in The Twilight Zone and in 1964 she played Minerva Doubleday in “The Case of the Wooden Nickels.” She also taught English and drama at Morningside High School in Inglewood, California. Love married playwright James Vincent McGee in 1948 and they divorced in 1978; he died in 1985. She was married to her college sweetheart, Alan Paul Gooding from January 22, 1983 until her death on October 30, 2011 in Menifee, California, at age 85.