harbin worked as an artists' model in los angeles in the 1930s. harbin's film appearances included roles in "so red the rose" (1935), "up jumped the devil" (1941), "cabin in the sky" (1943), "stormy weather" (1943), "i dood it" (1943), "jam session" (1944), "to have and have not" (1944), "ziegfeld follies" (1945), "look-out sister" (1947), "the foxes of harrow" (1947), "the pirate" (1948), "sky dragon" (1949), "destination murder" (1950), "the cimarron kid" (1952), "skirts ahoy!" (1952), "lydia bailey" (1952), "bomba and the jungle girl" (1952), "the green-eyed blonde" (1957). she was also in an episode of the television program "wagon train" (1958). she was sometimes told that she was "too pretty" for the roles available to african-american actresses in mainstream films of the 1940s and 1950s.