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After graduating from Washington Irving High School in New York, Morison studied at the Arts Students League while taking acting classes at the Neighborhood Playhouse. She also studied dance under Martha Graham. During this time she was employed as a dress shop designer at Russeks Department Store.

Morison made her stage debut at the Provincetown Playhouse in the musical revue Don`t Mind the Rain, in which she sang a song entitled "Simple Silly I." Her Broadway debut came in November 1933, with a short-lived play, Growing Pains. Following that, she proceeded to understudy Helen Hayes in her classic role of Victoria Regina. She also understudied all the other women in the cast. However, Hayes never missed a performance and, thus, Morison never had the opportunity to play her role.

In 1935, four years before her official film debut, Morison made her actual first appearance on film in an automobile propaganda short called Wreckless.

In 1938, Morison appeared in the musical The Two Bouquets, which ran for only 55 performances. Among the other cast members was Alfred Drake, who, years later, would co-star with Morison in Kiss Me, Kate.

While appearing in The Two Bouquets, Morison was noticed by talent scouts from Paramount Pictures, who — at the time — were looking for exotic, dark-haired glamorous types similar to Dorothy Lamour, one of their star commodities. Morison (who did indeed bear a slight resemblance to Lamour, notably in that they both had very long, dark hair) was subsequently signed to a contract with Paramount. She made her feature film debut in the "B" film Persons in Hiding (1939). Also in 1939, Paramount considered her for the role of Isobel in their adventure film Beau Geste, starring Gary Cooper and Ray Milland. However, she was replaced by Susan Hayward. The following year she appeared opposite Milland in the Technicolor romance Untamed, a re-make of the Clara Bow vehicle, Man Trap (1926).

Despite the promising beginnings, she was assigned to several second-tier pictures such as Rangers of Fortune (1940) and One Night in Lisbon (1941), both with Fred MacMurray, and The Roundup (1941) with Richard Dix and Preston Foster. On a loan-out to 20th Century-Fox she played one of her first villainess roles in Romance of the Rio Grande (1941), which starred Cesar Romero as the Cisco Kid.

Morison subsequently left Paramount after playing unrewarding roles in Night in New Orleans (1942) with Preston Foster, the Technicolor musical Beyond the Blue Horizon (1942) with the sarong-clad Dorothy Lamour, and Are Husbands Necessary? (1942), which re-teamed her with Ray Milland.

By 1942, the United States had become involved in World War II and, as a result, Morison became one of many celebrities who entertained American troops and their allies. In November of that year she joined Al Jolson, Merle Oberon, Allen Jenkins, and Frank McHugh on a USO Tour in Great Britain.

Morison returned to acting in the cinema as a freelance performer. As before, however, her roles were generally unimpressive. One of her better roles — albeit a small supporting one — was that of Empress Eugénie in The Song of Bernadette (1943) starring Jennifer Jones. She also appeared in The Fallen Sparrow (1943) with John Garfield and Maureen O`Hara, and Calling Dr. Death (1945), one of the "Inner Sanctum" films starring Lon Chaney, Jr.

In 1944, Morison briefly abandoned her film work and returned to the Broadway