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Born in Keyport, New Jersey, Hall received classical training at Juilliard School. In the early 1930s she was a special soloist and assistant director for the Hall Johnson Choir. A leading black Broadway performer in her day, she was personally chosen by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II to perform the roles she played in the musicals South Pacific and Flower Drum Song, as a Pacific Islander and a Chinese-American, respectively.[citation needed] In 1950, she became the first African-American to win a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Bloody Mary in South Pacific. She also starred in the 1954 Broadway musical House of Flowers.

In 1958 she reprised Bloody Mary in the film version of South Pacific, for which her singing part was dubbed, at Richard Rodgers`s request, by Muriel Smith who had played the role in the London production.

Hall married actor Clement Hall while in her teens. He died in the 1920s, and they had no children. Hall, a diabetic, died from complications of her illness in Bay Shore, Long Island, New York.