Faye Emerson was born to Lawrence and Emma (née Smythe) Emerson in the tiny community of Elizabeth, Louisiana. She moved with her mother to San Diego before the war, where she took up acting and by 1940 was a Hollywood starlet. Faye Emerson appeared in a number of crime dramas, co-starring with Zachary Scott in three: The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), Danger Signal (1945) and Guilty Bystander (1950). She co-starred with John Garfield in the film noir Nobody Lives Forever and opposite Jane Wyman in another mystery, Crime by Night. A film she made with Van Johnson in 1942, Murder in the Big House, was re-released under a new title later in the decade after Emerson began to make a name for herself in a new medium, television. In 1948, she made a move to TV and began acting in various anthology series, including The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre, The Philco Television Playhouse, and Goodyear Television Playhouse. She served as host for several short-lived talk shows and musical/variety shows, including Paris Cavalcade of Fashions (1948) and The Faye Emerson Show (CBS, 1950). Although The Faye Emerson Show lasted only one season, it gave her wide exposure because her time slot immediately followed the CBS Evening News and alternated weeknights with the popular The Perry Como Show. According to author Gabe Essoe in The Book of TV Lists, on one of the show’s segments, her low-cut gown slipped and “she exposed her ample self coast to coast.” The show was broadcast from a studio CBS built on the sixth floor of the Stork Club building. The studio, a complete replica of the Stork Club’s Cub Room, was built for The Stork Club, also seen on CBS beginning in 1950.

After The Faye Emerson Show, she continued in TV with other talk shows, including Faye Emerson’s Wonderful Town (1951-1952), Author Meets the Critics (1952), and Faye and Skitch (1953-54). She made numerous guest appearances on various variety shows and game shows. Emerson hosted or appeared on so many talk shows—usually wearing evening gowns—and game shows, such as I’ve Got a Secret, that she was known as “The First Lady of Television”. Faye Emerson moved to Spain and spent the rest of her life in seclusion. She died in 1983, aged 65, from stomach cancer in Deià, Majorca.