An actress on Broadway by the late teens, Tobin appeared in the 1923 film No Mother to Guide Her and then returned to the stage for the rest of the '20s. A Hollywood actress in the '30s and early '40s, Tobin appeared in such notable films as Ernst Lubitsch and George Cukor's One Hour with You, Archie Mayo's The Petrified Forest, Charles Vidor's The Great Gambini, and Cukor's Zaza. Tobin married director William Keighley in 1938 and appeared in his Easy to Love and No Time for Comedy before retiring from films.