Career
She started her working life as a switchboard operator in a commerce bank and did some sittings as a photographer"s model. Her first show business job was in the chorus line of "Mademoiselle Modiste" at the age of eighteen. Cunningham trained as a singer and appeared in opera.
She worked as a vaudeville comedian at the Palace in New York till commencement of her movie career in 1929.
Cunningham was a Hollywood character actress with whitish hair cut like a man"s, often in roles as a general "know-it-all". She appeared in more than 80 movies between 1929 and 1946.
Her remains are interred in Chapel of the Pines Crematory.